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

751–760 of 1001 posts

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

#751

Post by adolph »

Larrikin wrote: post #480
adolph wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I.e. the ICE agents showed up in the middle of a court proceeding, and the judge said they'd need to get permission from the chief judge before they could interrupt proceedings. The judge then didn't stop the defendant from leaving once the proceeding was done. Do you have any evidence of this claim? The FBI affidavit says they were waiting in the public hallway outside, let the bailiff know what they were doing an…

[flagged]

If vibes based epistemology works for you, great. Otherwise, it's my username because it's my birth name, feel free to complain to them or consider the Shel Silverstein and Johnny Cash song about a boy's name.

The source link is there for anyone to assess validity and I acknowledge in the comment that the FBI isn't an unimpeachable source. It also isn't so totally careless that an agent would make an affidavit for something that can easily be proven untrue under light scrutiny.

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

#752

Post by ajross »

gazebo64 wrote: post #745
ajross wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Hold up, all that stuff is completely unattested (and would have to be facts tried before a jury anyway). ICE does not have the power to decide on whether someone is a "domestic abuser" or whatever. They were just serving a warrant.

But more: What if the suspect was in court on an immigration concern? The judge would have been empowered to enjoin the deportation, no? You agree, right? That's what courts do? In which case, wouldn't the ICE agents be the ones guilty of "obstruction" here?

The point of the Rule of Law is that you don't empower individuals to make decisions about justice, ever. You try things before courts, and appeal, and eventually get to a resolution.

Trying to do anything else leads to exactly where we are here, where one arm of government is performatively arresting members of another for baldly partisan reasons.

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

#753

Post by cmurf »

The President of the United States of America is at war with the Constitution and the rule of law. - J. Michael Luttig, former Fourth Circuit judge, April 14, 2025.

https://abovethelaw.com/2025/04/conservative-judge-doesnt-pu...

---

This — the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s arrest today of a sitting judge — against the backdrop that the President of the United States is, at this same moment, defying an April 10 Order of the Supreme Court of the United States ... - April 25, 2025

(thread continues)

https://bsky.app/profile/judgeluttig.bsky.social/post/3lnnzb...

---

To read the Criminal Complaint and attached FBI Affidavit that gave rise to Wisconsin State Judge Hannah Dugan’s federal criminal arrest today for obstructing or impeding a proceeding before a department or agency of the United States and concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest is at once to know to a certainty that neither the state courts nor the federal courts could ever even hope to administer justice if the spectacle that took place in Judge Dugan’s courthouse last Friday April 18 took place in the courthouses across the country. - April 25, 2025

(thread continues)

https://bsky.app/profile/judgeluttig.bsky.social/post/3lnnxq...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Michael_Luttig

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

#754

Post by SimbaOnSteroids »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #535
SimbaOnSteroids wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ah my mistake, regardless calling people here illegally criminals is disingenuous given the potential offense committed.

Is your argument really "misdemeanors aren't crimes"? Imagine, "someone knowingly or recklessly causes bodily injury to you or with criminal negligence the person causes bodily injury to you by means of a deadly weapon". Would you not consider yourself the victim of a crime in that case? Because that's just third degree assault - a misdemeanor(at least, here in Colorado)

No my argument is stop using the word criminal because it makes the yokels think you're talking about some sicario or some jobless person living on the government doll.

You can tell this because when you poll americans what they think about deporting undocumented immigrants that belong to specific subgroups, their overwhelmingly against it. The kicker is that the subgroups listed cover nearly all undocumented immigrants.

> The survey also asked about whether other groups of immigrants in the country illegally should be deported. Relatively few Americans support deporting these immigrants if they have a job (15%), are parents of children born in the U.S. (14%), came to the U.S. as children (9%) or are married to a U.S. citizen (5%).

https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/03/26/vi...

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

#755

Post by ajross »

Jensson wrote: post #741
ajross wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wa…

> obstructed an arrest by changing standard procedure

Which sounds awfully novel to me. You really want to tear down the structure of democracy over this kind of nitpicking on "procedure"?

I remain horrified that people I really thought were normal Americans are willing to burn it all down just so they don't have to hear Spanish spoken in their doctor's office.

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

#756

Post by SauciestGNU »

Jensson wrote: post #736
gosub100 wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alien was already "detected", that's why they were at the courthouse. She didn't harbor him, she was performing her job and the defendant was required to be there. I also fail to see how she "concealed" him either. "Aiding and abetting" would be a stretch, but still more accurate verbs. But those aren't in the law you quoted.

> I also fail to see how she "concealed" him either. Using a special backdoor to avoid agents is "concealing", she allegedly did that to prevent him from being seen by the agents.

[flagged]

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

#757

Post by [deleted] »

kashunstva wrote: post #247
nwienert wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> They are enforcing the law, finally. That is far from clear. The facts are emerging slowly; so the sequence described below may ultimately be inaccurate… but, ICE agents interrupted a court hearing. The judge presiding over the hearing asked the agents to leave. When they returned, the subject whom the ICE officers were seeking had already left. Is there a law that compels a judge (or anyone, for that matter) to re…

[deleted]

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

#758

Post by pfannkuchen »

godelski wrote: post #584
pfannkuchen wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean banishment has worked pretty well for crimes historically. The punishment/rehabilitation spectrum is wrong on both sides IMO. If the threat is gone, from a utility perspective it doesn’t really matter how it happens.

Has it? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolanus - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_IV_of_England - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin Are you guessing or are you positive?

I just can’t even talk to people on the internet anymore.

I am speaking in general. Banishment was applied to commoners since forever. Did they crime in the area anymore? No, they aren’t there anymore.

Is there a special case for banishing political leaders, where the dynamics are different? Sure, probably. Does that apply here? No, obviously not.

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

#759

Post by mrguyorama »

lurk2 wrote: post #404
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.

United States Code, Title 8, § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) (2023) > (1)(A) Any person who […] > (iii) knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation; […] > sha…

>attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien

Does that cover "Hey, this door is closer to where we are going"? It's going to rest on convincing a jury that the only possible reason the suspect would go out that door would be the judge explicitly trying to help them evade arrest.

IMO that should be impossible to prove but we have never taken "Beyond a reasonable doubt" seriously.

"knowing or in reckless disregard"

Funny, nobody ever arrests any of the employers choosing not to verify the documents of their employees.

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

#760

Post by exe34 »

maxlybbert wrote: post #716
ajross wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cou…

apparently immigration law infringement only goes to court if you're trying to stop them now - if they want to send you to a concentration camp, there's no right to due process.
Post reply on HN