Photo: Kash Patel via X
A photo of Judge Hannah Dugan being arrested.
The federal trial of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan ended with the jury’s determination that Dugan impeded or obstructed a proceeding. At the same time the jury found that the government had not proven that she concealed someone to prevent his discovery or arrest. Dugan has since resigned and her lawyers recently filed motions challenging her verdict.
But don’t be fooled. The federal prosecution of Dugan has been but a distraction to the real story of the day, which is one of federal overreach, an attack on our Wisconsin criminal justice system and on the integrity of our courts.
Dugan was presiding over a busy court calendar on the morning of April 18. One of the 30 or so cases on her calendar involved a man charged with misdeamenor domestic battery. Federal immigration authorities had also targeted him for deportation. Six agents, representing four federal agencies including ICE and Border Patrol, showed up in the hallway outside Dugan’s courtroom to arrest him. They did, but not until after Dugan questioned what kind of warrant they had, directed some of them to the chief judge, and then released the man and his lawyer to the public hallway by way of a door 11 feet removed from the main entrance to the courtroom, where the agents had been waiting.
A week later, federal agents arrested Dugan at the courthouse, handcuffed her, and perp-walked her to an unmarked vehicle. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel issued statements boasting about the arrest. Bondi went so far as to call judges like Dugan “deranged,” saying her department would come after these judges and find them.
In fact, the problem here is that the federal agents showed up, unannounced, to stage an arrest in our courthouse, at the entrance to a courtroom. This behavior presents a real threat to the integrity of our Wisconsin courts.
Public safety is primarily a state, not a federal, concern. In this case, our system was working just the way it was supposed to before federal agents disrupted things: The police made an arrest; a prosecutor issued criminal charges; the case was assigned to Wisconsin circuit court; bond was set. Per the terms of his bond, the defendant showed up for his scheduled court proceeding.
Had the feds not derailed things, the case likely would have proceeded like thousands of others do in Wisconsin every year. If convicted, the defendant would have been held accountable at sentencing, a careful process that balances the severity of the offense, the rehabilitative needs of the defendant, and public safety. Our system also considers the concerns of the victim. Sentencing is a judge’s most difficult job; there are no perfect solutions, but the system our state courts have established has stood the test of time.
The federal government does have the authority to regulate immigration and if the feds have the legal grounds to deport someone, they can do so even if that shuts down a state prosecution. But here, the federal agents insisted on arresting the defendant outside the courtroom when he showed up for court. This created a needless, provocative spectacle that not only halted one state prosecution, it was calculated to send shock waves throughout the courthouse and to disturb the ability of the judiciary to do its job.
Criminal courts are busy places. Typically the courtroom and the corridor outside would be teeming with people. When federal agents appear outside the courtroom to arrest someone, that is highly disruptive. How will we expect criminal defendants to show up for court if they face seizure by federal agents? How will we provide a safe place for victims and their families to be heard if they are afraid of being snatched by ICE? How can the public trust the courts to provide a respectful place where justice is done according to well-established norms and the law?
Milwaukee’s circuit court judges had already recognized this problem and were working on a policy to govern federal arrests at the courthouse. Chief Judge Carl Ashley testified during Dugan’s trial that he reached out to ICE officials to get their input on the policy.
If the defendant needed to be deported before our criminal court could do its job, the federal agents could have obtained the proper warrant and taken him into custody somewhere other than in our courthouse. They knew where he lived, and even followed him from there to court that morning. The six agents may have preferred to make the arrest after the defendant had passed weapons screening at the courthouse, but the taxpayers provided that protection for the benefit of our state justice system, not to give ICE and Border Patrol a place to stage their arrests.
The federal court jury has done its job. We as citizens still have work to do. Federal immigration agents have no business showing up in our state courthouses to do their work. Their conduct here showed disrespect to all Wisconsin citizens, including the hundreds of state trial court judges and their staff who show up every day to serve the public and try to maintain an atmosphere of order and respect to all who have business before the courts. That is the real story here.
John Markson served as a Dane County judge from 2007-2017.
