Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan is charged with obstruction and concealment. The government’s case is expected to run through at least Thursday, with roughly two dozen witnesses lined up to testify.
Jurors settled into their seats for opening statements, first by the prosecutor. Dugan faces up to six years in prison if convicted on both counts.
The trial will center on what happened when Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, 31, reported to the county courthouse in April for a hearing on a state crime.
Democrats say Trump is looking to make an example of Dugan to blunt judicial opposition to immigration arrests. Dugan told police she and her family found threatening flyers at their homes this spring. The administration has branded her an activist judge.
Agents followed Flores-Ruiz outside the building and arrested him after a foot chase. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in November that he had been deported after he pleaded no contest in the battery case and was sentenced to time served.
Prosecutors charged Dugan on April 24 with obstruction and concealing an individual to prevent arrest. The state Supreme Court eventually suspended her.
Dugan tried to persuade U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman to dismiss the charges, arguing in filings that she’s immune from prosecution because she was acting in her official capacity as a judge. Adelman refused, ruling in September that there’s no firmly established immunity for judges from criminal prosecution.
Dugan also argues that she was following courthouse protocols on immigration arrests and wasn’t trying to disrupt agents. According to her filings, Milwaukee County Chief Judge Carl Ashley sent out a draft policy about a week before Flores-Ruiz was arrested that barred immigration officers from executing administrative warrants in nonpublic areas and required court personnel to refer any agents to a supervisor.
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