Washington — A federal magistrate judge said Monday that the Justice Department’s criminal case against Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan should move forward and recommended that her bid to dismiss the indictment be denied.
Dugan was arrested in April and charged with two federal counts after she was accused of helping a man who is in the U.S. illegally evade federal immigration authorities during a law enforcement operation at her courthouse in Milwaukee. She pleaded not guilty to one count of concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor, and one count of obstruction, a felony.
Dugan has argued that the case against her should be dismissed on the grounds that she was acting within the scope of her official duties as a state court judge and is therefore entitled to judicial immunity. She also said that the federal prosecution violates Wisconsin’s sovereignty by interfering with the duties of an elected state judge and disrupting active proceedings.
In a filing seeking to dismiss the indictment, Dugan’s lawyers called the government’s prosecution “virtually unprecedented and entirely unconstitutional.”
But federal prosecutors said the charges should not be dropped and urged a federal judge to deny Dugan’s bid to dismiss the case. They said Dugan’s request for a dismissal is “unprecedented” and would ignore “well-established law that has long permitted judges to be prosecuted for crimes they commit.”
“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,” they wrote in a filing last month. “Dugan’s desired ruling would, in essence, say that judges are ‘above the law,’ and uniquely entitled to interfere with federal law enforcement.”
In a report filed Monday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Joseph recommended that Dugan’s attempt to dismiss the charges should be rejected.
“It is well-established and undisputed that judges have absolute immunity from civil lawsuits for monetary damages when engaging in judicial acts,” she wrote in a 37-page filing. “This, however, is not a civil case. And review of the case law does not show an extension of this established doctrine to the criminal context.”
Joseph stressed, however, that her recommendations, which are non-binding, do not speak to the merits of the allegations against Dugan, who is presumed innocent until proven guilty. A jury trial before U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman was set to begin July 21, but has been delayed.
In arguing that she should be shielded from federal prosecution, Dugan cited the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in a case involving President Trump and the 2020 presidential election. The high court found that the president is immune from prosecution for official acts taken while in office.
But Joseph wrote she is “unconvinced” that common law or the Supreme Court’s decision in Mr. Trump’s case “provide the authority for applying the civil framework of absolute judicial immunity for judicial acts to the prosecution of judges for crimes that relate to official duties.”
The magistrate judge concluded that judicial immunity does not shield Dugan from prosecution for allegedly violating criminal laws while performing her official judicial duties.
“There is no firmly established absolute judicial immunity barring criminal prosecution of judges for judicial acts,” Joseph said.
Adelman will have the final word on whether to grant Dugan’s request to dismiss the indictment. Federal prosecutors and Dugan’s lawyers are set to appear before the judge Wednesday to discuss the status of the case and address additional scheduling matters.
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