Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan on trial for helping immigrant does not testify

MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Wisconsin judge accused of helping a Mexican immigrant evade federal authorities did not take the stand Thursday after her attorneys presented less than an hour’s worth of witnesses in her defense as she faces obstruction and concealment charges.

The case against Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was expected to head to the jury later Thursday after closing arguments.

The highly unusual charges against a sitting judge are an extraordinary consequence of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Dugan’s supporters say Trump is looking to make an example of her to blunt judicial opposition to immigration arrests.

Prosecutors have tried to show that Dugan intentionally interfered with members of a federal immigration task force’s efforts to arrest 31-year-old Eduardo Flores-Ruiz at the Milwaukee County Courthouse.

Dugan’s team filed a motion late Wednesday asking U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, who is presiding over the case, to find Dugan not guilty without asking jurors to deliberate. Adelman did not immediately rule Thursday on the motion, which is common after prosecutors present their case.

Dugan argued in her motion that she may have inconvenienced the arrest team but she didn’t intentionally try to conceal Flores-Ruiz, noting that although he left through a private door, he still emerged into the public hallway where two officers saw him.

Dugan also insisted that long-standing legal precedent prevents civil arrests of people coming or going from courthouses and immigration removal proceedings are civil actions.

Her attorneys called only four witnesses Thursday morning, including a public defender who took photographs of the arrest team in the hallway and two judges who testified that the draft policy was in flux in the weeks before Flores-Ruiz’s arrest.

The last witness was former Milwaukee mayor and Democratic congressman Tom Barrett, who testified that he’s known Dugan since high school and described her as “extremely honest.” He told jurors under cross-examination that he wasn’t at the courthouse on the day of the arrest and was only testifying about her character.

Officers who came to arrest Flores-Ruiz testified that they learned he was in the country illegally after he was arrested in Milwaukee on state battery charges. Flores-Ruiz was scheduled to appear for a hearing in front of Dugan on April 18. Six agents and officers staked out Dugan’s courtroom that morning, ready to arrest him when he emerged from the hearing.

They testified that Dugan and another judge, Kristela Cervera, stepped into the hallway wearing their robes. Dugan angrily told four members of the team to report to the chief judge’s office.

As Cervera led them to the office, Dugan returned to her courtroom and led Flores-Ruiz out a private door into the hallway. Prosecutors produced transcripts of audio recordings from microphones in her courtroom that show Dugan told her court reporter that she’d take “the heat” for showing Flores-Ruiz out the private door.

Two agents Dugan missed during her confrontations with the team followed Flores-Ruiz outside, and a foot chase through traffic ensued before he was finally arrested. Members of the team testified that Dugan divided them and forced them out of position, leaving them too short-handed to make a safe arrest in the hallway.

Cervera, for her part, testified that she was uncomfortable backing up Dugan during her confrontations with the arrest team. She said she was shocked when she heard Dugan led Flores-Ruiz out a private door, adding that judges shouldn’t help defendants evade arrest. Cervera also testified that Dugan told her three days after the incident that Dugan was “in the doghouse” with the chief judge, Carl Ashley, because she “tried to help that guy.”

Dugan’s attorneys have countered during cross-examinations that Dugan didn’t intend to obstruct the arrest team and was trying to follow a draft courthouse policy from Ashley that called for court employees to refer immigration agents looking to make an arrest in the courthouse to supervisors.

They’ve also argued that the arrest team could have apprehended Flores-Ruiz at any point after he emerged from the courtroom and Dugan shouldn’t be blamed for their decision to wait until he got outside.