What to know as trial nears for the Wisconsin judge accused of helping an immigrant dodge agents

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Defense attorneys and prosecutors were set Thursday to choose the jurors who will decide whether a Wisconsin judge accused of helping a Mexican immigrant dodge federal officers committed a crime.

Federal prosecutors charged Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan this spring with obstruction and concealing an individual to prevent arrest. They allege she showed 31-year-old Eduardo Flores-Ruiz out of her courtroom through a back door when she learned federal authorities were in the courthouse looking to arrest him.

Dugan is set to stand trial beginning Monday in the latest show of force in the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown. She faces up to six years in prison if convicted on both counts.

Here’s what to know about the case, jury selection and the trial:

FBI: Angry Dugan orchestrated escape attempt

According to an FBI affidavit, Flores-Ruiz illegally reentered the United States from Mexico in 2013. Agents learned that he had been charged in state court with battery in March and was scheduled to appear in front of Dugan on April 18.

Agents traveled to the courthouse to arrest Flores-Ruiz after the hearing. A public defender noticed the agents in the corridor and told Dugan’s clerk about them. Dugan grew angry, according to the affidavit, declared the situation “absurd” and approached with another judge. Dugan argued with the agents over whether their warrant was valid and told them to speak to the chief judge.

Dugan returned to her courtroom, told Flores-Ruiz to come with her and led him and his attorney out a back jury door to the public corridor outside the courtroom, the affidavit says. Agents on their way back from the chief judge’s office spotted Flores-Ruiz, but he made it outside. He was eventually captured after a foot chase. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in November that he had been deported.

Dugan defenders scouring jury pool for bias

Democrats insist President Donald Trump’s administration is trying to make an example of Dugan to blunt judicial opposition to its immigration crackdown.

The administration, for its part, has been vilifying Dugan on social media. FBI Director Kash Patel posted a photo of her being led out of the courthouse in handcuffs and the Department of Homeland Security posted that Dugan has taken the term activist judge “to a whole new meaning.”

Dugan told police she found a threatening flyer from an anti-government group at her home and at her mother and sister’s homes four days after Flores-Ruiz was captured.

Dugan’s attorneys have said they’re worried publicity about the case has tainted the jury pool. They sent a questionnaire to prospective jurors this fall in an effort to gauge their political involvement and leanings, asking whether they belong to political organizations, what radio shows and podcasts they follow, and what stickers, signs and patches they have on their cars, water bottles, backpacks and laptops.

Attorneys on both sides have already agreed to strike 44 prospective jurors, online court records show. A group of 40 prospective jurors was scheduled to show up Thursday morning at the federal courthouse in Milwaukee and fill out yet another questionnaire about whether their views have changed since they completed the first survey. Attorneys plan to spend the day questioning them in person.

The lawyers are prepared to bring in more prospective jurors on Friday if necessary.

Questions of immunity and protocol

Dugan’s defense team has argued that she’s immune from prosecution because she was acting in her official capacity as a judge and therefore had “no consciousness of wrongdoing, no wrongfulness, no deception,” according to their filings.

Her attorneys tried to persuade presiding Judge Lynn Adelman to dismiss the case in August on those grounds. The judge refused, saying that there’s no firmly established judicial immunity barring criminal prosecution.

Dugan also has argued that she was following protocols and did not intend to disrupt agents. According to her arguments, Milwaukee County Chief Judge Carl Ashley sent out a draft policy on immigration arrests in the courthouse about a week before Flores-Ruiz was arrested. The policy barred agents from executing administrative warrants in nonpublic courthouse areas and required court personnel to immediately refer any immigration agents to a supervisor, which Dugan did.

Dugan further contends that Ashley denied the agents permission to arrest Flores-Ruiz in the courtroom or the hallway. The agents then abandoned their plan to arrest him in the building and instead followed him outside so they could arrest him on the street, according to Dugan.

“(Dugan) was trying to ascertain, and follow, the rules,” her attorneys argued ahead of the trial.

Under federal guidance issued Jan. 21, immigration agents may carry out enforcement actions in or near courthouses if they believe someone they are trying to find will be there.

Immigration agents are generally required to let their internal legal office know ahead of time to make sure there are no legal restrictions, and are supposed to carry out arrests in nonpublic areas whenever possible, coordinate with court security and minimize impact on court operations.

Bill Clinton appointed the judge presiding over the case

Then-President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, appointed Adelman to the federal bench in 1997. A Wisconsin native, he served as a state senator for 20 years. He also worked as an attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Wisconsin and as a Columbia University Law School researcher. He’s now 86 years old.

He struck down Wisconsin’s voter photo identification law in 2014, calling it an unfair burden on poor and minority voters. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the law later that year, however.

Adelman also wrote an article in 2020 accusing the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts of eroding democracy.