Former Milwaukee judge moves for new trial, acquittal after jury finds her guilty of obstructing ICE

MILWAUKEE (CN) — Former Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan asked the court on Friday to overturn her conviction for obstructing ICE, echoing her unsuccessful pretrial motions for immunity.

In December, a jury found Dugan, 66, guilty of obstructing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at the Milwaukee County Courthouse last spring. Jurors acquitted her of a lesser charge of concealing an individual facing deportation after a four-day trial that drew national attention.

Prosecutors said Dugan intentionally split up a six-person arrest team so Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who was in her courtroom for an unrelated pretrial hearing and had lived in the country illegally for more than a decade, could avoid arrest.

She resigned in January in a letter to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers amid pressure from state Republicans, but said she would continue fighting in federal court “for myself and for our independent judiciary.”

On Friday, Dugan filed a post-trial briefing and motion asking U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, a Bill Clinton appointee, to overturn her conviction or order a new trial altogether.

"Dugan files this motion as the first and only judge in United States history to stand trial on an indictment for wholly official, good faith acts untainted by graft, corruption or self dealing and that violated no individual constitutional right that the Reconstruction Amendments protect," Dugan said in the 46-page filing.

The filing largely echoed her legal team’s earlier argument that Dugan’s actions in April 2025 fell within her judicial duties and that she cannot be punished for discretionary official acts.

She also asserted that ICE lacks authority to make arrests inside the county courthouse and that she was enforcing the law by telling officers so. The claim rests on common law and, if accepted by Lynn Adelman, could reshape how ICE operates nationwide.

Dugan further said Adelman erred in responding to a jury question about whether she needed to know the identity of the person being targeted to obstruct or conceal the arrest. After reviewing the issue in chambers, Adelman gave an answer that Dugan argues misstated the law and lacked sufficient clarity.

As is typical of this kind of motion, Dugan also asserted that the government failed to meet its burden and that the jury's verdict should be overturned. Specifically, she took issue with whether the prosecution proved that she had the knowledge and intent required to obstruct.

In addition to her post-trial briefing, Dugan renewed her motions to dismiss and for acquittal on the final day of trial based on her judicial immunity. Adelman had previously denied the argument pretrial.

"With the full trial record now available, Dugan incorporates and relies again on her judicial immunity arguments and respectfully requests that the Court reconsider its prior rulings...The Court can certainly say as a matter of law now, after hearing the government's case, that Dugan was entitled to immunity from this prosecution," Dugan said in Friday's motion.

After his hearing was quickly rescheduled, Flores-Ruiz exited Dugan’s courtroom on April 18 through a jury door that led to a private hallway and back into a public hallway, where members of an ICE arrest team were waiting. No officers were inside the courtroom.

According to court records and undisputed trial testimony, agents followed him out of the building and arrested him after a brief chase.

In her acquittal motion, Dugan said directing Flores-Ruiz through the jury door amounted to, at most, a “trivial inconvenience,” noting it is only about 12 feet from the main courtroom exit.

“Immaterial obstruction logically is no obstruction at all, certainly when someone’s liberty and reputation is at stake on a criminal charge…He emerged into the same public hallway in full view of the agents at the same time he would have emerged in any event,” Dugan said.

She raised several other legal grounds for acquittal on the charges, but a bulk of the 22-page motion asserts simply that the judge did nothing wrong, and, if she did, she didn’t do it with any malice.

Adelman is expected to rule on this motion after the government has had the opportunity to respond in March.

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