Hannah Dugan Seeks New Trial

Judge Hannah Dugan’s courtroom on the sixth floor of the Milwaukee County Courthouse. Photo taken by Graham Kilmer.

After being convicted in federal court of felony obstruction, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan will seek a new trial.

Her attorneys filed a motion in U.S. District Court Tuesday asking for more time to work on a legal briefing requesting a new trial. The court is already considering a motion seeking a judgment of acquittal, which would vacate the guilty verdict against Dugan.

The grounds for the motion to grant a new trial include a significant error of law, verdict going against the weight of evidence, irregularity in the court proceeding, jury misconduct, newly discovered material evidence, and improper damages.

After a four-day trial, a jury delivered a split verdict on Dec. 18, finding Dugan guilty of one count of obstruction of a federal deportation proceeding and not guilty on one count of concealing an individual from arrest.

The charges stemmed from an incident at the Milwaukee County Courthouse on April 18. Federal agents went to the courthouse that day to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented immigrant who was appearing before Dugan on charges of misdemeanor battery and domestic violence. When Dugan learned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were in the hall outside her courtroom, she confronted them and asked if they had a judicial warrant. When informed they had an administrative warrant, Dugan sent the agents to the chief judge’s office. Back in her courtroom she rescheduled Flores-Ruiz’s case and sent him and his attorney out of a side door, rather than the main door, to the public hallway.

Federal prosecutors argued that Dugan knowingly obstructed the arrest and tried to conceal Flores-Ruiz. Her defense argued Dugan was acting under widespread confusion and uncertainty in the courthouse about how to treat ICE in the wake of previous arrests that shocked courthouse personnel and the wider community.

Jury deliberations appeared to hinge on one question: Did Dugan need to know the identity of the person ICE was after to be guilty of the charges against her? The federal government did not produce evidence showing Dugan knew whose name was on the warrant. Circuit Court Judge Kristela Cervera offered the only indication Dugan knew who ICE agents were seeking in her testimony during the trial.

But the defense attacked the veracity of Cervera’s statements, as well as her motivations. The jury did not appear to believe the federal government had proven Dugan knew whose name was on the warrant.

On the first count, concealment, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman told jurors Dugan needed to know the identity of the person subject to arrest, and on that count the jury did not convict. On the second count, obstruction, Adelman gave jurors different instructions, telling them, “To know of the pending proceeding the defendant needed to have sufficient knowledge about the nature of the proceeding.” On that count Dugan was found guilty.

After the verdict, Dugan attorney Steven Biskupic said, “You know, the same elements of count one are in count two. How can you find guilty there and not guilty on the first?”

In response to a question on the split verdict, U.S. Attorney General Brad Schimel said, “Well, it’s two different charges. The jury had to consider two different sets of elements.”