By TODD RICHMOND and SCOTT BAUER
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Republicans threatened Friday to impeach embattled judge Hannah Dugan if she doesn’t resign immediately after she was convicted of obstruction for helping an immigrant evade federal officers, saying her time serving the people of the state is over.
Federal prosecutors in April accused the judge of distracting federal officers trying to arrest a Mexican immigrant outside her courtroom and leading the man out through a private door. A jury convicted her of felony obstruction late Thursday after a four-day trial.
Dugan faces up to five years in prison when she’s sentenced, though federal judges have discretion to go lower. No sentencing date has been set.
The Wisconsin Constitution bars convicted felons from holding public office. The state Judicial Commission, which disciplines state judges, and Milwaukee County Chief Judge Carl Ashley, Dugan’s boss, haven’t responded to questions Friday about when Dugan’s office will officially become vacant. Under state law, a vacancy doesn’t begin until a convicted office holder is sentenced.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Majority Leader Tyler August, both Republicans, on Friday morning threatened to impeach Dugan if she doesn’t immediately resign. They cited a legal opinion issued by then-Attorney General Bronson La Follette in 1976 that a state senator lost his seat the moment he was convicted of a felony.
“Wisconsinites deserve to know their judiciary is impartial and that justice is blind,” Vos and August said in a joint statement. “Judge Hannah Dugan is neither, and her privilege of serving the people of Wisconsin has come to an end.”
Dugan’s defense team has not responded to a message seeking comment.
The case against Dugan played out against a background of political turmoil over President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown. Democrats insisted the administration was trying to make an example of Dugan to blunt judicial opposition to the operation. Trump’s administration branded Dugan an activist judge and posted photos of her being led away in handcuffs.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi posted Friday that “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.”
“No one can obstruct law enforcement as they carry out their basic duties,” she said in a social media post. “This Department of Justice will not waver as our agents and law enforcement partners continue to make America Safe Again.”
Dugan never took the stand. Steve Biskupic, her lead attorney, said that he didn’t understand how the jury could have reached a split verdict since the elements of both charges were so similar. Her team is expected to appeal the verdict.
A coalition of 13 advocacy groups, including Common Cause Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters Wisconsin, said “higher courts must carefully review the serious constitutional questions this case raises about due process, judicial authority, and federal overreach.”
The Democracy Defenders Fund, a group that says it works to defend “the foundations of our democracy,” sent a fundraising email shortly after the verdicts were handed down to help cover Dugan’s legal expenses.
“This case is far from over,” the group’s executive chair, Norm Eisen, said in the email. “Higher courts will have the opportunity to determine whether this prosecution crossed the lines that protect the judiciary from executive overreach.”
John Vaudreuil, a former U.S. attorney in Madison, said Dugan faces an uphill fight to overturn the verdict. Appellate courts typically view evidence in the light most favorable to the government.
Vaudreuil wasn’t surprised to see a split verdict, saying the jury likely felt she intentionally tried to “throw some sand into the gears” but didn’t go as far as concealing the immigrant in the general sense of the word, like hiding him in her house.
“The two charges gave them two different ways to look at the evidence,” he said.
Vaudreuil said he expects U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman to set a sentencing date within the next few days, but sentencing could be months away because the government needs time to examine Dugan’s background for a pre-sentencing report.
On April 18, immigration officers went to the Milwaukee County courthouse after learning 31-year-old Eduardo Flores-Ruiz had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case.
Dugan confronted agents outside her courtroom and directed them to Ashley’s office. After they had left led Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in November he had been deported.