Stories like these don’t fit neatly into either side of the political divide, no matter how hard they both try to claim them. The case of Hannah Dugan’s obstruction conviction is just like that.
On a Wednesday morning that felt like it had been a long time coming, a former judge in Wisconsin found out what would happen to her. Hannah Dugan, 67, was charged with a crime and given a $5,000 fine. She used to be a circuit judge in Milwaukee County for nine years. No jail. Not on probation. Judge Lynn Adelman of the U.S. District Court looked at the woman in front of him and said, in essence, that a few minutes of bad judgment shouldn’t erase a lifetime of public service. Even if you think she should have been punished more severely, it’s hard not to feel the weight of that frame.
Things that caused this all to happen took place in a Milwaukee courthouse on April 18, 2025, and until they didn’t, they probably seemed normal. Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, 31, a Mexican citizen who had re-entered the country illegally and was due to appear before Dugan on a misdemeanor battery charge, was arrested by ICE agents. Dugan sat down with the agents outside of her courtroom, asked them about their administrative warrant, and told them to go down the hall to the chief judge’s office. She put off the hearing, told Flores-Ruiz to leave through a private jury door, and walked him out herself because most of the agents were busy at the time. Soon after, federal agents saw him in the hallway and chased him outside the building. They arrested him anyway. In November, he was sent back to Mexico.
FBI Director Kash Patel made sure that everyone knew about Dugan’s arrest a week after the corridor chase. He shared a picture of her being led out of the courthouse in handcuffs. Take a moment to think about that detail. The way they looked was planned, and almost everyone could tell.
In December, Dugan was found guilty of felony obstruction of an official proceeding. On a separate misdemeanor charge of hiding someone to avoid arrest, the jury found her not guilty. Federal guidelines for sentencing said that people should spend 15 to 21 months in prison. Citing the oath she took as a judge, the prosecutors said her actions were a serious crime that crossed a clear line. They didn’t say which sentence it was, but it was clear that they thought the rules should mean something.
Adelman clearly didn’t agree. He said that Dugan had already lost her job—she quit as a judge in January because Republicans in Wisconsin were threatening to impeach her—had a felony on her record, and had to move and stay away from public life because of threats against her and her family. “This is a few minutes of conduct for someone who has dedicated her life to public service,” he replied. Some people on both sides of the argument will find this sentence annoying, which may be why it seems honest.
Dugan stood up to speak, and what she said was probably so measured that it surprised some people who were expecting her to be angry or sorry. She told the judge, “I have been cast as both a thief and a hero.” “I’m not either. I work for the government and am just trying to do my job. You probably will believe that or not based on how you feel about the larger plan to enforce immigration laws that brought ICE agents into her courtroom that morning.
Throughout the whole case, her lawyers said that the Trump administration used it on purpose to send a message to the courts about how to work with ICE courthouse operations. Two law professors from Marquette University spoke in her favor. A Jesuit priest read a statement that called her a fight for people who are being mistreated. A former justice of the state’s Supreme Court showed up to defend her.
It’s still not clear if the appeal her lawyers said they would file will actually be heard. The Hannah Dugan obstruction conviction, on the other hand, has already done something that courts rarely do well: it has started a real conversation about where judicial discretion ends and obstruction begins, but no one has a clear answer yet.
