The Wisconsin Supreme Court this week announced
they were temporarily suspending Milwaukee County
Judge Hannah Dugan, quote, "in order to uphold the public's
confidence in the courts of this state, Dugan was arrested
and charged in federal court with obstructing federal
immigration officials in their efforts to arrest
an illegal immigrant following an appearance
in her courtroom.
Reactions to these events have remained political."
Democratic U.S.
Senator Tammy Baldwin said,
quote, "The president's administration arresting
a sitting judge is a gravely serious and drastic move."
While details of this exact case remain minimal, this action
fits into the deeply concerning patterns of this president's
lawless behavior and undermining courts and Congress's checks
on his power.
While Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Voss said, quote,
"These are serious charges, and And it's important to remember
no one is above the law.
We are reviewing the situation and the charges result in
a conviction we will act.
Judge Dugan's decision to hide a dangerous illegal immigrant
was irresponsible and put public safety at risk.
Joining us now is UW-Madison Professor
Emeritus Howard Schwaber.
Thanks for your time.
Well, thanks for having me.
So what is your opinion of the case put forward
by the federal government?
Did they have grounds to make an arrest here?
Well, we have to keep in mind that the only facts
we have to go on are those contained in the complaint.
Right? And there's a reason we don't take
complaints at face value.
That's why we have trials.
So, based, but based only on those facts and assuming
everything that is alleged in the complaint is true,
yeah, they've got a pretty strong case.
The ICE agents were in the public areas of the
courthouse, where law enforcement was permitted
by both law and tradition to make arrests.
It appears the judge very much went out of her way to
help this guy evade arrest.
It was not a matter of simply pointing to a door.
There was much more to it than that, according
to the allegations.
So if these facts bear out and if she is convicted on the
basis of complaint as it stands, I would say that the case
against her is pretty strong.
But at that point, I think there will be no doubt that the
State Supreme Court, as well as the legislature, would
take action to remove her from the bench.
Now, her case will play out in federal court, but what's the
impact in other courtrooms?
Is there any doubt that Trump administration was trying to
send a message to all judges everywhere in these actions?
No, there's no doubt about that at all.
It's worth remembering that in his first term,
Trump also had a judge in Massachusetts arrested.
It's worth also pointing out that this decision
by the State Supreme Court to suspend
Judge Duggan was 7-0, was unanimous.
It's temporary and it's suspension with pay.
So we shouldn't overstate where we are at
in the specifics of the case, but the political environment
is exactly what you just raised.
The Trump administration has been going after and trying to
intimidate federal judges from the beginning with threats
of impeachment and threats to shut down court houses.
I don't think it's a coincidence that this week
the Trump administration announced an executive
order targeting state and local officials who interfere
with deportation efforts.
And the manner of the arrest was really egregious.
handcuffs and photographs and publicity, you know, the perp
walk element of the whole thing.
That was very clearly an aesthetic intended to send
a message of a threat.
The locals, the judges everywhere, state and
local judges everywhere, you know, don't
get in our way.
It won't end well for you.
Some law enforcement officials, like here in
Dane County, specifically avoid asking questions
around immigration status because they've said
they don't want potential witnesses or victims
to feel intimidated or have concerns about
showing up at court rooms.
What will this mean in terms of justice in a lot of other
cases that have nothing to do with this particular issue?
Well, that's the policy side of this.
And it's absolutely, you know, again, you've raised
exactly the right concern.
It doesn't work to simply exclude a category of people
and say if you participate in our court system in any way,
you may be subject to arrest, that's going to make them go
underground and that's going to make it harder for the
police and for prosecutors and criminal cases and in civil
cases though, you know, cases of, for example, domestic abuse,
which is one of the allegations that's involved in this case.
in the past, law enforcement has been very hesitant to
operate inside of court houses, and especially court
rooms. Again, we have to come back to two key
points here.
One, if every single one of the facts
alleged exactly as the federal government says it
is, this is a strong case and this judge acted at
least recklessly.
And two, the unanimous opinion by
the State Supreme Court, I think shows that that court
is very, very concerned not to see this become a disruption
of the court system as whole, not to see
these kind of conflicts spreading across the state,
but the background politics of intimidation of state and
local officials and of judges in particular, I think it is in
everyone's mind and rightly so.
Now we spoke with one of the nine chief judges in Wisconsin
and they said they're waiting for the director of state
courts or the chief of chiefs to speak out, but we've heard
nothing so far other than this one statement by the
Wisconsin Supreme Court.
And is the silence pretty loud in that situation?
Do they have an obligation to speak out publicly
or give guidance to judges in this situation?
Well, I don't know about an obligation.
So the big question is, this gets rather technical.
In the case of the well of the administrative warrants,
unlike warrants signed by judges do not permit law enforcement
to enter into private spaces without permission.
There's a kind of background understanding that courtrooms
are treated as private spaces but that the public areas
of court houses are not.
And that's an established understanding.
That's not brand new.
I think it'll be useful for the chief judge to come up
with a clear set of guidelines that judges are on the state.
But certainly, part of the problem is,
it has to be a concern of pushback from the
federal government, or from federal authorities, if
the feds don't like the rules that Wisconsin comes up with.
So there may be negotiations going on behind the scenes
to try and get that worked out.
I do-- we had-- we've seen one Wisconsin judge already
threatened to effectively shut down her courtroom
in the absence of guidance.
That's another thing that could spread,
and that would be a problem.
So I expect that a statement would be forthcoming,
and I expect that it will have some detailed rules
and policies.
And I think the one thing that's very clear, the State Supreme
Court has made very clear is once those policies are in
place, they will be enforced.
All right.
Professor Schraver, thanks for your time today.
Thank you.