On April 25, the FBI perpwalked a sitting judge out of her own courthouse for the crime of aggravated directing her own courtroom. FBI Director Kash Patel posted a photo of Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan’s arrest, accusing her of “intentionally misdirect[ing] federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse,” unposted it when every lawyer on social media pointed out that he was poisoning the jury pool and violating prosecutorial ethics, and then reposted it because FUCKIT WE BALL.
Attorney General Bondi followed up the next day on Fox.
“She put the lives of our law enforcement officers at risk. She put the lives of citizens at risk,” she vamped. “What has happened to our judiciary is beyond me…. They are deranged is all I can think of.”
On Tuesday of this week, a grand jury indicted Judge Dugan on two counts of obstructing an arrest. And on Wednesday she filed a banger of a motion to dismiss.
Exhibit 1: Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593 (2024).
“The problems with this prosecution are legion, but most immediately, the government cannot prosecute Judge Dugan because she is entitled to judicial immunity for her official acts,” she wrote, pointing to the Supreme Court’s decision blowing up the prosecution of the president by inventing a magical cloak of perpetual immunity. “Immunity is not a defense to the prosecution to be determined later by a jury or court; it is an absolute bar to the prosecution at the outset.”
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If Donald Trump can’t go to jail for “president stuff,” up to and including obstructing Congress, then judges can’t be prosecuted for telling defendants to go out a side door.
Particularly since the affirmative acts listed in the indictment are pretty clearly part of the judge’s official duties to manage her own courtroom and courthouse. Those include: telling ICE to get out of the hallway; demanding a judicial, rather than administrative warrant; telling a defendant in her courtroom he could go out the jury exit; speaking to the Chief Judge; and allowing the defendant to appear remotely for his next hearing.
Yes, even if the judge’s motivation was to ensure that the defendant didn’t get arrested by ICE in her courthouse.
Judge Dugan’s subjective motivations are irrelevant to immunity. “Judges are entitled to absolute immunity for their judicial acts, without regard to the motive with which those acts are allegedly performed.” Id.; accord Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. at 618 (“In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives”).
“The immunity and federalism issues must be resolved swiftly because the government has no basis in law to prosecute her,” Judge Dugan’s lawyers argued, echoing the exact same arguments that (now) Solicitor General John Sauer made in Trump v. US. “The prosecution against her is barred. The Court should dismiss the indictment.”
Judge Lynn Adelman is an 85-year-old Clinton appointee who spent 20 years in the Wisconsin legislature before joining the federal bench in 1997. In February of 2020, Judge Adelman wrote a banger of his own in the Harvard Law and Policy Review, where he excoriated the Roberts Court for “actively participating in undermining American democracy.”
“The Court’s decisions are undermining the democratic republic that the American people, often led by subordinated groups, have fought for,” he wrote. “And this is happening at a time when democratic institutions need strengthening.”
The court has not yet ruled on Judge Dugan’s motion to dismiss, but the one promises to be AMAZING.
US v. Dugan [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.