By David Thomas and Andrew Goudsward
MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin, July 8 (Reuters) – A former Wisconsin judge was sentenced to no prison time and fined $5,000 on Wednesday after a jury found she obstructed a planned immigration arrest outside her courtroom, in a case that became a flashpoint over the Trump administration’s use of courthouses to detain migrants.
Hannah Dugan, 67, a former Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge, drew national attention as President Donald Trump’s administration sought to deter interference with its immigration enforcement efforts.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman noted Dugan’s long history of public service in deciding to spare Dugan from prison.
“The punishment should fit the offender, and not merely the crime,” Adelman said during a hearing in Milwaukee federal court, adding that Dugan “made a bad decision in the moment.”
Dugan was convicted of obstructing a federal proceeding and cleared of a lesser charge of concealing a person from arrest following a federal trial in December. Prosecutors said she helped a Mexican migrant sought by federal agents leave through a non-public courtroom door.
The migrant, who was scheduled to appear in her courtroom on misdemeanor assault charges, left by a “jury door” to avoid federal agents who were positioned in a hallway outside her courtroom.
The migrant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, walked through a public hallway with his attorney and was arrested outside the courthouse following a brief foot chase.
In addressing the court prior to the sentencing, Dugan said her prosecution was politicized.
“I was a public servant who was just trying to do my job,” she said.
Federal prosecutors did not make a specific sentencing recommendation but had argued that federal guidelines called for between 15 and 21 months in prison.
“Rather than uphold the rule of law, the defendant used the power and prestige of judicial office to obstruct federal agents carrying out their lawful duties in order to help an individual evade arrest,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
The sentence should reflect the “serious nature of her conduct and its broader impact on the justice system,” prosecutors wrote.
Lawyers for Dugan disputed that federal guidelines call for a 15-to-21-month sentence and asked Adelman to sentence Dugan to time served, meaning she would serve no time in prison.
Dugan’s defense team argued in a court filing that the episode was “isolated and unique; and there is no possibility of her repeating it.”
Her lawyers noted that she lost her judicial position following her conviction and argued she had been “intentionally shamed” by top officials at the Justice Department and FBI following her April 2025 arrest.
FBI Director Kash Patel posted a photo on social media in April 2025 of a handcuffed Dugan being led into a police vehicle with the caption, “no one is above the law.”
(Reporting by David Thomas and Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Cynthia Osterman and Howard Goller)
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