The Justice Department asked a federal judge to reject Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan‘s judicial immunity argument as she seeks to dismiss obstruction charges levied against her for allegedly helping an illegal immigrant escape from federal immigration officers.
Dugan is accused of helping an illegal immigrant before her court escape from her courtroom in April. She pleaded not guilty to federal obstruction charges but has also filed a motion to dismiss the case, citing judicial immunity from prosecution for her actions.
DOJ lawyers filed a response Monday to Dugan’s motion to dismiss, claiming that the indicted judge’s argument would require the court to consider judges as “above the law” and “uniquely entitled to interfere with federal law enforcement.”
“Dugan asks this Court for an unprecedented dismissal on grounds of judicial immunity, ignoring well-established law that has long permitted judges to be prosecuted for crimes they commit,” DOJ lawyers wrote. “Combined with Dugan’s attempt to define ‘judicial acts’ expansively, such a ruling would give state court judges carte blanche to interfere with valid law enforcement actions by federal agents in public hallways of a courthouse, and perhaps even beyond.”
“The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected such a proposition,” DOJ lawyers added. “This Court should decline to expand judicial immunity in this fashion.”
The Justice Department argued Dugan’s attempt to invoke the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Trump v. United States would be an improper extension of the scope of that ruling, which dealt with presidential immunity. The justices ruled in that case that presidents have immunity for official acts, but no immunity from prosecution for unofficial acts. The DOJ argued the 2024 decision applies only to presidents, not to other government officials.
“The Supreme Court in Trump held that the President has criminal immunity for official acts based on the presidency’s ‘unique position in the constitutional scheme’ and the ‘unique risks to the effective functioning of government’ if Presidents were forced to constantly assess whether their decision-making while in office might one day prompt criminal inquiries by state or federal prosecutors,” DOJ lawyers wrote.
“Applying Trump outside the presidential context to the tens of thousands of people across the country who serve in judicial roles would be an unwarranted and baseless extension,” DOJ lawyers argued.
Dugan said in her filing to the court last month that the case should be dismissed because she claims judicial immunity only allows her to be prosecuted for “conduct plainly well outside the scope of a judge’s job and official acts.”
“In sum, nothing in this indictment sounds a claim of anything like the unofficial acts and extrajudicial self-dealing that have sent state judges to face trial on federal criminal charges,” Dugan’s lawyer said in the filing last month.
The trial in Dugan’s case is scheduled for July 21.
Shortly after Dugan was arrested in April on obstruction charges, the Wisconsin Supreme Court temporarily suspended her from her duties for the Milwaukee County Circuit.