audio version of the segment here > Emotion and confusion is not a defense in the eyes of the law
Jay Weber Show transcript 12-16-25
Yesterday was the first day of Judge Hannah Dugan’s trail for engineering the courtroom escape of an illegal alien who ice agents had showed up to collect. I find it interesting that there is very little argument over what judge Dugan did…and that the first day of the trial didn’t really focus on the fact that this is all caught on surveillance tape.
By the way- this is a national story. The question of whether a local judge can or will be held accountable for helping an illegal alien evade ice is, obviously, something that an entire country of leftists and ‘law and order’ types are interested in. Both sides of the aisle want to know whether our liberal officials are going to be held accountable for aiding and abetting illegals in violation of our federal laws…or not.
And so, this is a closely watched case in the legal and political communities nationwide.
Dugan’s actions became an early flashpoint in the Trump deportation efforts, especially after border czar Tom Homan and DHS sect Kristi Noem had made it so clear: local leaders have the right to ‘not cooperate’ with ice, but they do not have the right to impede ice operations. And Dugan clearly did.
So, will there be consequences for this? Or not? Everyone wants to know- most especially- I imagine- all of the other lefty prosecutors, judges, and local elected who want to get actively involved in impeding ice in their communities.
I don’t hold out much hope for a satisfactory ending to this, given the fact that the judge is famously loony lefty activist Lynn Adelman…but i suppose we can watch the process play out.
Dugan also has a good legal team led by Steven Biscupic, who was a great federal prosecutor for SE Wisconsin when he was on the other side of the legal equation. So you know they are going to have a savvy strategy to, if nothing else, confuse the jury members and tug on their heart strings rather than having them focus on the law.
But ‘day one’ was apparently gobbled up by the two sides of the case painting very different pictures of Hannah Dugan and her actions.
The bottom line is, even a judge isn’t above the law. And she certainly isn’t just because she’s at work with her robes on.
And that’s what the US attorney argued.
Keith Alexander is an assistant US attorney and portrayed Dugan as what she is: an activist judge who took the law into her own hands to protect an illegal alien who was due to appear in her court on domestic battery charges.
For some reason, keeping ice from doing their jobs and enforcing federal laws…was more important to Dugan than enforcing the state laws that she took an oath to enforce.
Alexander played audio and video and showed pictures and emails as part of his opening statements…before
Defense attorney Steve Biskupic insisted that Dugan was not scheming to help an illegal escape…but was trying to follow the rules that a chief judge had put on how to deal with ice in the Milwaukee courthouse. Yeah. Sure. She pointed the illegal to a back hallway and back exit so he could flee the building as she distracted the ice agents.
Dugan-very clearly interfered with an ice operation. On tape.And so, the question for the jury is ultimately going to be: are you going to acknowledge that Hannah Dugan broke federal laws, or not?
That seems to be the only real question for the jury here, when it comes down to it, after what is sure to be days and days of testimony meant to waste a lot of time on this.
At one point, Biskupic said: "she is struggling as to what to do,” there’s no concealment. There’s no obstruction.”
But there was: here, you and your attorney escape thru this hallway as i distract the ice agents…seems to be clearly ‘obstruction’.
Dugan is charged with two counts: obstruction of a federal agency, a felony, and concealing a wanted person, a misdemeanor.
If convicted, she faces up to six years in prison, though first-time nonviolent offenders typically get shorter sentences or probation, and from Lynn Adelman? I cannot imagine that he makes her serve any amount of jail time for this.
As far as i can tell, there’s only really ‘one thing’ that is working against Dugan when it comes to the overall ‘set up’ of the situation: she’s got a lefty judge hearing the case and great lawyers… etc.
But…there are eight men and five women in the jury. I’m thinking the eight men are less likely to put up with semantical games and cutesy emotional BS if they see and hear Dugan angrily confronting and distracting the ice agents after they see her shuttle the illegal alien out the back.
There simply isn’t a way that anyone with any common sense…and without a political ax to grind…couldn’t see that Hannah Dugan is guilty of obstruction, at the very least.
Six federal agents came to Dugan’s court that day to arrest the illegal, who was charged with assaulting his roommate and two others. Those victims were in court that day, which alexander mentioned several times. But Dugan found it more important to protect the accused thug than protect the community. She made the decision-not- to proceed with the attempt to get justice for the illegal’s victims…but to instead. Help him escape federal justice.
Which is pathetic. There’s simply-no- heroic scenario here when it comes to judge Dugan’s actions…and if you remember…even her supporters really, really backed off in defending her after they saw the tape of her orchestrating the escape.
This illegal, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz was in the US illegally, having re-entered the country after he was deported in 2013. But Dugan thought his comfort and freedom were more important than anyone else’s, including his victims.
And the prosecutor, Kevin Alexander, told the jury; agents alerted Dugan’s court staff that they would do the arrest in the hall after his appearance, and once Dugan learned of the agents' presence, she took several steps that, taken together, amounted to hiding Flores-Ruiz and obstructing agents, he said.
Dugan went into the court of a fellow judge Kristel Cervera, called off the bench, asked her to come with her, and told her to keep her robe on, he said.
The pair went to talk to the agents, with Dugan ultimately sending them to the nearby office of chief judge Carl Ashley.
Alexander said Cervera will testify that her “heart sank” when she realized they were confronting agents but felt she couldn’t challenge Dugan because of her demeanor.
Once the agents were sent to Ashley’s office, Dugan returned to her court and took several unusual actions: she took flores-ruiz's case first, told the attorney to come back for a date and then can be heard talking in a whisper that the pair should go "down the stairs," the prosecutor said.
At another point, Dugan says: "I’ll do it. I'll get the heat," alexander said.
Dugan then led the pair through a non-public door into a hallway for judges and court staff. There are two doors out of that hallway, one into an enclosed stairwell, the other into a public corridor.
Quote: "she knew what she was doing was wrong and she did it anyway," alexander said. Yep.
And the best Biscupic could do is claim…well…judge Dugan was just trying to work thru new rules that the chief judge was about to put on the courthouse.
Citing emails and upcoming testimony, the roughly 50 Milwaukee County judges were reacting with "anger, confusion and paranoia" about the immigration arrests, he said.
The day of the incident, the chief judge was still working on a policy of how federal immigration arrests would be handled.
Biskuipic said Dugan was concerned that people were not coming to court because of a fear of ice. Again- so what?
The line is clear: you don’t have to cooperate with ice-but you cannot obstruct ice. This should be an open and shut case.
If the best Dugan’s defense can do is claim…it was a confusing and emotional time in the courthouse…that’s not much of a defense.
He, as a federal prosecutor, never would have let a defense team get away with that argument: confused or not- you broke the law.Emotional or not, you broke the law. Angry at Trump because you thought this ice arrests would discourage people to come to court- or not- you broke the law, judge Dugan.
That is the-correct-response to the ‘she was frazzled and angry and confused’ defense.
photo credit: Getty Images
