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FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

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Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#441

Post by ty6853 »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #386
EgregiousCube wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The accused is accused of violating federal law, so it's normal that a federal agency would make the arrest. FBI seems to make more sense than DEA or ATF, no?

It’s not that the agency is wrong; it’s that the agency would do it. This is the agency that since J Edgar Hoover has very carefully rebuilt its reputation and is very guarded in it. This act is entirely reminiscent of the political corruption of the FBI of old. That regression, that fast, is frightening. ICE being shady is by many people accepted, the DEA, ATF even. But the FBI has built itself a pretty strong reput…

ICE, ATF, and CBP has always been the house for the dregs of federal LEO. It is for the people that fail to get into anything else.

FBI is prestigious because they get the most qualified tyrants, who are smart enough to lie and deceive in ways that are airtight enough that those at ICE take the heat. The surprising thing here isn't the fact that they did it, but that they didn't do the normal way of digging or manufacturing something else to pin on the judge.

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#443

Post by dttze »

gitfan86 wrote: post #380
fnordpiglet wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact the FBI participated in this arrest is chilling. ICE being a proto secret police seems to be perceived already. The FBI now? There’s question whether the ICE agents even had legal grounds to demand arrest regardless, whether they had a warrant, etc - and the facts established are pretty clearly not prosecutable. So this is pure intimidation, going after the judicial in what will likely be a flagrantly abusiv…

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Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#444

Post by joquarky »

esbranson wrote: post #408
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under any occasion, it was inappropriate to arrest a judge like this. We’re honestly at the point where I’d be comfortable with armed militias defending state and local institutions from federal police. If only to force someone to think twice about something like this. (To be clear, I’m not happy we’re here. But we are.)

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Please read up on the Dunning Kruger effect.

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#445

Post by nonethewiser »

FireBeyond wrote: post #431
nonethewiser wrote: post #385

This would be pretty sad if she did help him evade ICE. He was in court for battery charges and in the country illegally. ICE arresting him does not interfere with any due process. Which he 100% needs to get (but arresting him is still part of that). What is left here thats worth protecting? Not someone we want in the country and the agents had a warrant for his arrest (court comes after that). I feel like this is a…

> He was in court for battery charges Oh I’m sorry, I misread, I thought you said he had been convicted of something. The law is very important to you when it’s a misdemeanor immigration offense but that whole innocent till proven guilty thing is just an inconvenience.

I dont understand what you mean by your comment. He was arrested for being in the country illegally. The way this is supposed to work is: 1) you get a warrant, 2) then you make the arrest, and 3) the person gets due process in court. We finished 2 and we definitely need 3. If we dont we have a problem. But what they did so far was correct.

He also was in court for battery. It seems like you're implying that since battery is not illegal entry that he couldn't be arrested. ??? If anything thats just another good reason not to aid his unlawful presence in the country.

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#446

Post by EnPissant »

Sequence of events according to the criminal complaint[1]:

1. ICE obtained and brought an administrative immigration warrant to arrest Flores-Ruiz after his 8:30 a.m. state-court hearing in Courtroom 615 (Judge Dugan’s court).

2. Agents informed the courtroom deputy of their plan and waited in the public hallway. A public-defender attorney photographed them and alerted Judge Dugan.

3. Judge Dugan left the bench, confronted the agents in the hallway, angrily insisted they needed a judicial warrant, and ordered them to see the Chief Judge. Judge A (another judge) escorted most of the team away. One DEA agent remained unnoticed.

4. Returning to her courtroom, Judge Dugan placed Flores-Ruiz in the jury box, then personally escorted him and his attorney through the locked jury-door into non-public corridors: an exit normally used only for in-custody defendants escorted by deputies.

5. The prosecutor (ADA) handling the case was present, as were the victims of the domestic violence charges. However, the case was never called on the record, and the ADA was never informed of the adjournment.

6. Flores-Ruiz and counsel used a distant elevator, exited on 9th Street, and walked toward the front plaza. Agents who had just left the Chief Judge’s office spotted them. When approached, Flores-Ruiz sprinted away.

7. After a brief foot chase along State Street, agents arrested Flores-Ruiz at 9:05 a.m., about 22 minutes after first seeing him inside.

[1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69943125/united-states-...

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#447

Post by JumpCrisscross »

gosub100 wrote: post #417
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under any occasion, it was inappropriate to arrest a judge like this. We’re honestly at the point where I’d be comfortable with armed militias defending state and local institutions from federal police. If only to force someone to think twice about something like this. (To be clear, I’m not happy we’re here. But we are.)

Why don't you organize one?

> Why don't you organize one?

I live in Wyoming. Our courts aren’t being attacked.

I’d absolutely be open to lending material support to anyone looking to lawfully organise something like this in their community, however.

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#448

Post by AIPedant »

lolinder wrote: post #383
Miner49er wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How in the world is this an arrestable offense. Escorting someone out of a room?

If it can be proven that she deliberately escorted the person through the non-public exit to the courtroom with the intent of helping them evade arrest by officers with a warrant who were waiting outside at the other entrance, how would that not be an arrestable offence? We're extremely light on facts right now, so I'm not taking the above quoted story at face value, but if one were to take it at face value it seems…

The part that makes it not so clear cut is that this is really a constitutional issue rather than a criminal one. It is not credible that the judge was trying to ensure the man could keep living in the US undocumented. She was defending her court. From a judge's POV, arresting a plantiff/defendant in the middle of a trial is a violation of their right to a trial and impedes local prosecutors' abilities to seek justice.

Ultimately this seems like Trump asserting that the federal executive branch has unfettered veto authority over local judicial branches. That doesn't sit well with me.

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#450

Post by openasocket »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #402
openasocket wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would really depend on what the judge did, though. If the judge said, “the guy you are looking for is with the chief judge” and it turns out he wasn’t with the chief judge, that sounds like obstruction. If the judge said, “the chief judge wants to talk to you”, and the chief judge really did want to talk to the ICE agents, is that obstruction? In that scenario, ICE could have just not gone to see the chief judge…

>That would really depend on what the judge did, though. It would, of course. But we don't know what the judge did, and yet everyone here is interpreting the events in the least generous way possible. Next week, when there is another incident, they'll use their least generous interpretations of what happened here as fact to justify their least generous interpretations of that incident. >If the judge said, “the guy yo…

> Or, if he just said "you all need to leave, none can stay" with the intention of hurrying the proceeding along so that the immigrant could leave before they could possibly return, that too is willful obstruction.

In the fact pattern you've given, we're getting dangerously close to prosecuting a judge for official acts taken in their courtroom. The only difference is that, in your fact pattern, the judge is doing this in bad faith, with the express intent of assisting this person evade arrest.

A Judge is required to maintain order in their courtroom and ensure that the docket runs smoothly. A bunch of ICE agents sitting in the gallery could definitely be interpreted as disruptive. If this defendant saw that or knew that, he would be likely to run. If ICE was going to arrest this person in the middle of a courtroom, that would also be disruptive. A judge is well within their rights to remove people from the gallery if they are going to pose a disruption.

Additionally, this is not new. Defendants walk into court with open warrants all the time. Police are not allowed to walk in and arrest defendants in the middle of court. I don't understand why ICE would be special.

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