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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

#741

Post by Jensson »

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…

> It can't very well be "obstruction" if they aren't empowered to do the search in the first place, can it?

The allegation is that she obstructed an arrest by changing standard procedure, she wasn't arrested for obstructing search that part was fine.

The ICE agents were legally allowed to wait outside and arrest the man as he stepped out, the judge leading the man out the backdoor after she learned ICE agents were waiting at the front is very hard to defend as anything but obstruction of arrest.

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

#743

Post by [deleted] »

lolinder wrote: post #717
sasmithjr wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [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_ju…

[deleted]

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

#744

Post by kstrauser »

bdelmas wrote: post #568
nemomarx wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, we should also reform immigration and make the legal pathways better and more accessible to attract citizens but cities have no ability to control that, while they can impact some things locally, so it's different groups of people doing both of these?

To be honest, for me personally having cities that have that much power is weird to me. It should be something at the state or federal level. But as a counterargument: if this is not monkey patching, why not create a full sanctuary state? Sounds scary to me. We need better laws. Current laws are also in place because it's just easier and works for now. Like instead of redoing visas and how they are processed for the…

94% of Californians live in cities. It's not that a "city" has so much power, as that large populations of people living near each other decided how they wanted to handle their business. Because they have a large proportion of the state's legislative representation, as is appropriate, that legislature tends to vote in ways that the cities' residents want them to.

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

#745

Post by gazebo64 »

ajross wrote: post #676
kemayo wrote: post #16

> He accused Dugan of “intentionally misdirecting” federal agents who arrived at the courthouse to detain an immigrant who was set to appear before her in an unrelated proceeding. It sounds like the arrest isn't because of any official act of the judge, but rather over them either not telling the ICE agents where the person was or giving them the wrong information about their location. There are some pretty broad law…

> It sounds like the arrest isn't because of any official act of the judge, but rather over them either not telling the ICE agents where the person was or giving them the wrong information about their location. No, that is the excuse. They found a technicality on which they could arrest her, so they arrested her because they wanted to arrest her. Needless to say people don't get tried on this kind of "look the other…

> They found a technicality on which they could arrest her, so they arrested her because they wanted to arrest her

If by technicality you mean correctly identifying that the judge intentionally adjourned the suspect's court proceedings and directed them through a non-public exit in order to evade a lawful deportation of a domestic abuser who had already been deported once, yes, it was a "technicality". The short form would be to acknowledge the judge intentionally interfered with a lawful deportation, which is a crime, thus the arrest.

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

#746

Post by tbrownaw »

mullingitover wrote: post #451
mjburgess wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It isnt clear ICE agents have any legal authority to demand a judge tell them anything. 2. It is highly likely this is an official act, since it would be taken on behalf of court, so the immigrant can give, eg. testimony in a case. A "private act" here would be the judge lying in order to prevent their deportation because they as a private person wanted to do so. It seems highly unlikely that this is the case.

I'd wager dollars to donuts this is a "You'll beat the rap but you won't beat the ride" intimidation tactic: the FBI knows it doesn't have a case, but they don't need to have a case to handcuff the judge and throw them in jail for a few days. That intimidation and use of force against the judicial branch is the end in itself.

> wager dollars to donuts

Donuts at the local grocery store are $7/dozen. If you're somewhere with generally higher prices, this bet might not be as lopsided as it's traditionally meant to be.

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

#747

Post by jibal »

macinjosh wrote: post #651
crooked-v wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A judge who's literally in the middle of an official hearing is absolutely a special case.

[flagged]

Nothing in the article even remotely supports your claim ... which isn't even relevant.

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

#748

Post by alistairSH »

alistairSH wrote: post #396
Supermancho wrote: post #17

AFAICT, the summary: Judge (or the courthouse in some regard) assured immigrants-of-interest^ would not be detained in courthouse, to speed up legal proceedings and to try to ensure equitable justice was being served. An immigrant was identified by ICE and the judge directed ICE somewhere and when the immigrant was not apprehended (maybe appeared in court for his 3 BATTERY misdemeanors), the FBI was called in to arre…

We don't know if that's correct because, unless it's surfaced in the last hour, we haven't seen anybody's account of what happened before the arrest (other than some high-level appointees tweeting).

Can't edit, but I've seen a few more detailed timelines that roughly correspond to the parent post.

The judge didn't want ICE screwing up her courtroom (as is her right), so she declined to allow them to serve the warrant in her court.

ICE went to her boss (different part of building).

Meanwhile, she concluded her hearing with the immigrant in question and then sent him down a private stairway to exit the building.

When ICE heard what she did, they had a warrant issued for her arrest, which was then served by the FBI. So, somebody did convince a local magistrate (not a full-blown judge) to issue that warrant.

My take (IANAL)... the judge was not in the wrong for decling to serve the initial warrant. But sending the guy down a private hallway was a dumb move. Was it a federal crime? Doesn't seem like it - a slap on the wrist from her boss probably should have been sufficient.

Really, just more of the Trump administration throwing their weight around and pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable in the US.

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

#749

Post by jibal »

xpe wrote: post #361
empath75 wrote: post #270

This is part of a broader pattern of the incompetent thugs at ICE taking advantage of other, actual functioning and useful parts of government to help them do their work for them. It's not just courts, it's citizenship hearings, it's the IRS, it's schools. They're trying to send a message not to push back or get in their way. It's not about this particular judge, they are sending a message that they will go after sch…

Generally, I share these concerns. At the same time, this story is very new. In any case, looking at the primary sources is important. See https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69943125/united-states-... . I'm not a lawyer, but the criminal complaint does appear to be, more or less, within the realm of normal. Now, putting aside that complaint, the decision to arrest Dugan is questionable for sure. My current understa…

Criminal complaints against sitting judges for actions they took in their courtroom are not at all "normal".

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

#750

Post by frognumber »

pseudo0 wrote: post #614
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are basically saying that everybody has to help ICE for free and on occasion do the job of ICE for free. That’s very totalitarian. At the same time, it is settled law that a police officer cannot be held liable for not protecting citizens or not arresting someone. So you have more obligations than a police officer yet getting none of the pay or legal protections Imagine you were a private tutor, in a private scho…

ICE had a warrant. They were being courteous to the court by waiting until after the hearing instead of scooping the guy up on his way in. And no, you don't have to help ICE, you just can't obstruct them. Sneaking a suspect out a back door while you stall the police is textbook, classic obstruction.

You're downvoted because ICE did not have a warrant.

ICE prints pieces of paper which they call "administrative warrants." Those were never reviewed by a judge and are internal ICE documents. An administrative warrant is not an actual warrant in any meaningful sense. It's a meaningful document (contrary to what you might read; it's not something one can just print on a laser printer and called it a day), but the "administrative" changes the meaning dramatically.

It seems like there were plenty of errors all around, in this situation, both on the judge's side and on ICE's side. However, I can't imagine any of those rose to the level of criminal behavior.

Sneaking a suspect out a back door while you stall the police is textbook, classic obstruction, but that changes quite a bit when it's a government employee operating within their scope of duty. Even if they make a mistake.

Schools don't want students scared to be there. Courtrooms want to count on cases not being settled by default because people are scared to show up. There is a valid, lawful reason for not permitting ICE to disrupt their government functions. That's doubly true when you can't count on ICE following the law and might ship someone off to El Salvador.

Asking an LLM, whether or not the judge broke laws is ambiguous. It is unambiguous that they showed poor judgment, and there should probably be consequences. However, what's not ambiguous is that the consequences should be through judicial oversight mechanisms, and not the FBI arresting the judge.

As a footnote, a judge not being able to rely on ICE following lawful orders significantly strengthens the government interest argument.

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