Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

711–720 of 1001 posts

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

#711

Post by Jensson »

TrackerFF wrote: post #693
s1artibartfast wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that a key point? The agents were asked to wait in a public area, the hall outside the courtroom. There was a call with the chief judge who confirmed this is a public area. The allegations revolve around judge Dugan's actions. They allegedly cancelled the targets hearing and [directed] the them through a private back door to avoid arrest. Edit: directed, not escorted.

If we're going to be technical about this, which one has to be in the eyes of the law, what is the difference between escorting them through the private back door vs escorting them through the front door? How do you prove intent? That her intent was to obstruct? They point out in the article that such room (juror room) is never usually used by certain people, but that still doesn't prove anything about her intent.

> that still doesn't prove anything about her intent.

If the only reason to use the backdoor is to avoid arrest, then that proves her intent. If there was another reason to use it then that will come up in court.

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

#712

Post by thowawy9292 »

neilpointer wrote: post #666
macinjosh wrote: post #640

[flagged]

I think it's because our legal system is predicated on "innocent until proven guilty" for really, really good reasons. One such reason is assuming people should not be protected by the law without proving allegations against them in a court.

[dead]

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

#713

Post by insane_dreamer »

Animats wrote: post #602

A key point here, which the judge brought up with the ICE agents, is that they only had an "administrative warrant".[1] An “ICE warrant” is not a real warrant. It is not reviewed by a judge or any neutral party to determine if it is based on probable cause. "An immigration officer from ICE or CBP may not enter any nonpublic areas—or areas that are not freely accessible to the public and hence carry a higher expectati…

If ICE wasn't legally authorized to search the premises or arrest the man, then the judge wasn't "obstructing" his arrest.

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

#714

Post by Jensson »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #713
Animats wrote: post #602

A key point here, which the judge brought up with the ICE agents, is that they only had an "administrative warrant".[1] An “ICE warrant” is not a real warrant. It is not reviewed by a judge or any neutral party to determine if it is based on probable cause. "An immigration officer from ICE or CBP may not enter any nonpublic areas—or areas that are not freely accessible to the public and hence carry a higher expectati…

If ICE wasn't legally authorized to search the premises or arrest the man, then the judge wasn't "obstructing" his arrest.

They didn't need to search, they just needed to wait outside to arrest. That would have worked if the defendant didn't use the backdoor.

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

#715

Post by insane_dreamer »

xyzzy9563 wrote: post #530
crooked-v wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it extremely doubtful that she told the agents he'd be leaving through a particular door or that she had any legal obligation to make sure the man exited in a particular way.

It's a crime to harbor or aid illegals in evading federal authorities. So this is a legal obligation of every person.

Except that the authorities didn't have a valid warrant, signed by a judge, to arrest someone.

(It's not a crime to aid illegals if the authorities don't have a valid warrant.)

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

#716

Post by maxlybbert »

ajross wrote: post #671
Gabriel54 wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no suggestion that the agents conducted a search or entered a non-public area. And this has nothing to do with the claim that the judge actively obstructed their efforts.

It can't very well be "obstruction" if they aren't empowered to do the search in the first place, can it? No, this is a disaster. Hyperbole aside, this is indeed how democracy dies. Eventually this escalates to arresting more senior political enemies. And eventually the arbiter of whoever has the power to make and enforce those arrests ends up resting not with the elected government but in the law enforcement and mil…

Immigration law is wildly different from what people expect. But it is the law and it has been held up in countless court cases. This weirdness is not new.

I think most of the weirdness comes from the fact that entering the country illegally, or remaining in the country illegally can be crimes, but they can also be civil offenses. “Civil” means no jail time, but people still get deported without going to criminal court.

“Civil” also means “doesn’t have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” and “no constitutional right to a public defender.” Immigration law tries to provide limited forms of some of those ideas. There’s a kind of bail system, and people have a right to be represented by attorneys, but no right for those attorneys to be paid by the government. There is somebody referred to as an immigration judge, and they have a federal job, but they aren’t regular federal judges.

It’s possible to appeal an immigration court’s decision to a federal district court to get into the legal system we’re more familiar with.

* https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11536

* https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12158

* https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10559

* https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10362

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

#717

Post by lolinder »

sasmithjr wrote: post #710
s1artibartfast wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that a key point? The agents were asked to wait in a public area, the hall outside the courtroom. There was a call with the chief judge who confirmed this is a public area. The allegations revolve around judge Dugan's actions. They allegedly cancelled the targets hearing and [directed] the them through a private back door to avoid arrest. Edit: directed, not escorted.

> [Dugan allegedly] escorted the them through a private back door to avoid arrest. According to the complaint [0] on page 11, Flores-Ruiz still ended up in a public hallway and was observed by one of the agents. They just didn't catch him before he was able to use the elevator. INAL but I don't think "Dugan let Flores-Ruiz use a different door to get to the elevator than ICE expected" should be illegal. [0]: https://…

The outcomes are immaterial to the legal question of obstruction, the only factors are knowledge of the warrant and intent to help him escape. If he successfully avoided arrest but it cannot be proven that the judge intended that outcome, then she is not guilty of obstruction. If he got caught anyway but the judge intended to help him escape, that's still obstruction.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/obstruction_of_justice

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

#718

Post by pcthrowaway »

mulmen wrote: post #668
pcthrowaway wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Undocumented immigrants who are charged with murder should not be deported without a trial first. If found guilty they would typically serve their sentence before facing deportation (though perhaps this is different now) Though I personally don't see the point in making people who are going to be deported anyway serve a sentence... taxpayers would then be paying the bill for both their incarceration and their deporta…

So you are in favor of rehabilitation but you want to gatekeep it? Undocumented immigrants are taxpayers.

No, I'm in favour of rehabilitation and setting people up for success, and also not deporting people who have undergone a rehabilitation process.

If we are going to incarcerate people under the current system (which doesn't serve to rehabilitate, and thus only serves to remove people from the general public who may be a danger to said public), then I think we shouldn't bother for people who are going to get deported anyway, though I think those people should still receive a trial by jury before deportation.

I think incarceration only has limited effectiveness as a deterrent, and the cost to society of incarcerating people who are going to be deported after outweighs any benefit in deterrence from doing so.

To be clear, I think the cost of incarceration in the current system outweighs the benefit more generally, so I'd strongly favour overall prison reform and an end of for-profit prisons. But people being deported will incur additional costs, and deportation itself serves as a deterrent already.

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

#719

Post by JuniperMesos »

roughly wrote: post #287
pjc50 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> incredibly doubtful that they could be successfully prosecuted for this. But they can be successfully arrested. You can beat the rap but not the ride, etc. The US is not yet at the level of dysfunction where jurisdiction is settled with gunfire, but ICE seem to be determined to move that closer.

ICE should’ve been reformed after Trump 1, but at this point we’re going to need to unwind the whole organization when we get that man out of power. They’ve shown themselves to be pretty disinterested in laws, democracy, etc.

This is the reform of ICE. Trump was elected explicitly promising to do much more arrests and deportations of illegal immigrants, which is instantiated by having agents of the federal government do things like arrest and deport illegal immigrants on trial for unrelated crimes and actually charge citizens like this judge who interfere with this process with crimes, in order to induce them to not interfere with the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants.

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

#720

Post by dmoy »

dmoy wrote: post #700
ty6853 wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what study you are reading and the case it uses to argue that is highly flawed.

This is the one I remember from years ago: https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites... I'm not sure what case you mean

Are you talking about a federal case? That I don't know anything about, this is mostly just state law stuff
Post reply on HN