Judge Defends Courthouse Sanctuary: Challenges ICE’s Civil Arrests in New Trial Request

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents breached a “longstanding privilege” that prohibits civil arrests in courthouses, according to attorneys representing Hannah Dugan, a former Wisconsin judge. This claim arises after Dugan allegedly shielded an undocumented immigrant from arrest during a courthouse incident, for which she was found guilty last year.

Dugan’s legal team contends in a motion filed on January 30 that ICE lacked the legal authority to execute a warrant inside a state courthouse against an individual scheduled for a court appearance. “Dugan’s conviction cannot stand, as a matter of law,” the motion asserts, calling for a new trial.

The 66-year-old former judge faced indictment last year for purportedly aiding Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an immigrant, to evade federal authorities just after he attended a hearing in her Milwaukee County Circuit courtroom related to a domestic abuse case. In December, a federal jury convicted Dugan of a felony charge for obstructing or impeding a proceeding before a U.S. department or agency. However, she was acquitted of a misdemeanor charge of concealing an individual to prevent his arrest.

Steve Biskupic, one of Dugan’s defense attorneys and a former U.S. Attorney, revealed to WISN in late December that her defense team intended to request U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, appointed by Bill Clinton, to overturn the guilty verdict. The motion for a new trial, submitted on Friday, argues that recent court decisions, including one from November 2025, have recognized a “common-law privilege” against civil arrests in courthouses.

Dugan’s attorneys reference at least four federal district court opinions, ranging from California to New York, that have aimed to restrict ICE from executing administrative warrants in courthouses since 2020. They argue that since 1894, Wisconsin has joined other courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, in establishing a common-law privilege against executing civil process or civil arrest warrants, such as ICE administrative warrants, against individuals appearing in courtrooms.

“This privilege specifically precludes ICE courthouse arrests for deportations or removal,” their motion says.

Dugan’s team points out how the Southern District of California, for instance, granted non-citizen plaintiffs a temporary restraining order barring ICE from civil arrests in courthouses in a 2020 case. “That court rejected the argument that the privilege does not apply against the federal government,” her motion says.

“On April 18, 2025, Hannah Dugan, in her role as a judicial officer, acted consistently with an established privilege barring civil arrests of parties in courthouses,” the motion concludes. “Federal and state courts long have recognized that common-law privilege preventing civil arrest or service of civil process for parties and witnesses who are in, entering, or leaving courthouses for a hearing or other proceeding.”

Dugan’s lawyers describe her as “the first and only judge in United States history to stand trial on an indictment for wholly official, good-faith acts untainted by graft, corruption, or self-dealing and that violated no individual constitutional right that the Reconstruction Amendments protect,” per the motion.

The Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge stepped down from the bench last month and officially resigned to keep “pursuing this fight” against the legal system and her guilty verdict “for our independent judiciary,” she said.

“I am the subject of unprecedented federal legal proceedings, which are far from concluded but which present immense and complex challenges that threaten the independence of our judiciary,” Dugan wrote in a letter to Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, which was first shared by local ABC affiliate WISN.

“I am pursuing this fight for myself and for our independent judiciary,” Dugan added. “However, the Wisconsin citizens that I cherish deserve to start the year with a judge on the bench in Milwaukee County Branch 31 rather than have the fate of that Court rest in a partisan fight in the state legislature.”

Dugan’s lawyers noted in interviews that they were requesting a new trial on the grounds that jurors were improperly instructed during her trial.

Specifically, the jury reportedly asked whether Dugan needed to know who ICE agents were looking for that day in order to convict her. For the misdemeanor concealing charge, the jurors said Adelman told them yes. But for the felony charge, jurors claimed he told them no.

“If it came back the same, we all would have found her not guilty, I am sure of it,” a juror told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel after Dugan’s conviction. “The jury followed Adelman’s instructions faithfully,” another juror said.

In their Friday motion, Dugan’s team argued that “the jury instructions mistakenly gave no guidance to the jury on how to consider Dugan’s legal right to act as she did.”

The motion says, “The court’s improper response to the jury constructively amended the indictment. … The error was not just in the court’s response to the jury, but in the evidence presented.”

During her trial, federal prosecutors alleged Dugan impeded ICE agents during the courthouse immigration bust in Milwaukee by helping Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican national who was facing misdemeanor battery charges, leave through a jury door after a hearing in his criminal case. Dugan was accused of “falsely” telling ICE agents they needed to obtain a judicial warrant to take Flores-Ruiz into custody. Later, a deputy working in the courthouse provided information to federal investigators.

The incident occurred on April 18, 2025, and Dugan was charged in a criminal complaint less than a week later and was formally indicted in late May.

Obstruction carries a potential maximum sentence of five years in federal prison, according to federal law. But such an outcome is exceedingly unlikely due to Dugan’s lack of a criminal record and the facts of the case itself. The sought-after criminal defendant was eventually detained and then deported in November.