Forced Out by Threats: The Real Reason Judge Hannah Dugan Resigned After 9 Years on the Bench

A Wisconsin judge who became a flashpoint in Donald Trump's immigration crackdown resigned from the bench in Milwaukee in early January after nine years in office, saying threats of impeachment over her obstruction conviction left her no realistic choice, according to court records and her own resignation letter.

Judge Hannah Dugan, who presided over Milwaukee county branch 31, was found guilty in December of felony obstruction for helping an immigrant evade federal officers at the courthouse and now faces up to five years in prison.

How Judge Hannah Dugan Landed In The Crosshairs

The criminal case against Judge Hannah Dugan grew out of one fraught morning at the Milwaukee county courthouse.

On 18 April 2025, immigration officers turned up there after learning that Flores‑Ruiz, who had previously been deported and re‑entered the United States illegally, was scheduled to appear before her on a state charge.

According to the indictment and court testimony, Dugan confronted federal agents outside her courtroom and told them their administrative warrant was not sufficient grounds to arrest Flores‑Ruiz in the courthouse.

She directed them to the chief judge's office instead. While they were away, she told Flores‑Ruiz's lawyer that his client could attend a future hearing by video and led them out through a private jury door.

Agents later spotted Flores‑Ruiz in a corridor, chased him outside and arrested him after a short foot pursuit. He ultimately pleaded guilty to illegal re‑entry, received a sentence of time served and was deported in November.

Dugan, meanwhile, was arrested by FBI agents in the same courthouse a week after the incident and led out in handcuffs.

Federal prosecutors charged her with obstructing a pending immigration proceeding and with concealing an individual from arrest.

She was acquitted on the misdemeanour concealment count but convicted on the felony obstruction charge, marking the first time a state judge in Wisconsin had gone to trial for allegedly impeding immigration agents.

A Test Case For Trump's Immigration Crackdown

From the outset, the prosecution of Judge Hannah Dugan was framed by both sides as a test of how far Trump's enforcement agenda could reach into state courts. The Trump administration cast the case as a clear message that judges could not shield undocumented immigrants from federal law. Supporters of the president publicly labelled her an activist willing to put personal views above statute.

Dugan's legal team argued that she was being unfairly targeted for making a lawful call about how federal agents should operate in her courtroom. They asserted that, as a sitting judge performing judicial functions, she should have been immune from prosecution. That argument failed in court.

The legal fight has only grown more complex since the guilty verdict. On the day she was initially due to be sentenced, US District Judge Lynn Adelman in Milwaukee instead postponed the hearing indefinitely to consider a defence motion to throw out the jury's decision.

Her lawyer, Steven Biskupic, urged the court to overturn the conviction in light of a recent ruling by the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia. In that case, an immigrant who had escaped and been recaptured was charged with obstructing a 'pending proceeding' after an encounter with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

The appeals court later found that the ICE action did not meet the legal definition of a proceeding under the federal obstruction statute.

Biskupic told Judge Adelman that the same logic should apply to Dugan. In her courtroom, he argued, there was no pending immigration proceeding being sought by federal agents, only an arrest warrant.

The filing of a warrant, he said, did not constitute a proceeding and so could not support an obstruction charge. 'Our primary argument is this was an invalid theory of conviction,' he told the court.

Acting US attorney Richard Frohling countered that the Virginia decision did not control the Wisconsin case and that other precedents supported Dugan's conviction.

Pressed by Judge Adelman to define what counts as a proceeding and how long it lasts, Frohling replied that it 'could be a couple minutes, it could be a couple years', depending on context. He also said the appeals court in Virginia had been wrong to overturn the earlier conviction there.

Adelman did not rule from the bench and gave no indication when he might decide whether to set the verdict aside.

Forced Out Under Threat: Why Dugan Stepped Down

While that legal argument plays out, the political judgment on Judge Hannah Dugan arrived quickly. In the days after her conviction, Republican leaders in the Wisconsin assembly moved to force her out, citing state constitutional provisions that allow impeachment of judges for crimes or misdemeanours.

Assembly speaker Robin Vos, a leading Republican, praised her eventual decision to go voluntarily. 'I'm glad Dugan did the right thing by resigning and followed the clear direction from the Wisconsin constitution,' he said, according to the Associated Press.

In her letter to governor Tony Evers, Dugan wrote that she was '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.'

She said she intended to keep fighting her case on appeal 'for myself and for our independent judiciary' but did not want Milwaukee citizens left in limbo.

'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,' she told the governor.

Democratic officials in the state, while careful not to pre‑judge the outcome of her appeal, echoed that framing. Ann Jacobs, the Democratic chair of the Wisconsin elections commission board, wrote on X that she agreed Milwaukee should have a permanent judge in place while Dugan contests her conviction.

'Despite her situation, she is ever the champion of justice, wanting to remove the judiciary from a political battle over her fate,' Jacobs said, adding that the decision was likely 'terribly hard for her' but reflected her 'faith and her principles.'

A Conviction, But No Sentence Yet

Although the obstruction charge carries a statutory maximum of five years in prison, federal sentencing guidelines make a custodial term unlikely for a first‑time, non‑violent offender like Dugan. Probation is typically recommended in such cases.

For now, however, even that question is on hold. Judge Adelman has postponed sentencing indefinitely while he weighs whether higher‑court developments have undermined the basis for the jury's decision.

In the meantime, Flores‑Ruiz is already back in Mexico, having been deported last year, and branch 31 of the Milwaukee county circuit court will soon have a new judge.

Dugan, who walked out of Wednesday's hearing without speaking to reporters, is left to fight a federal conviction that she insists should never have stood, and to argue that the price of her choices should not be measured only in years or months, but in what kind of line separates federal power from the local courtroom she once controlled.

The news came after months of mounting legal and political pressure around the case. Dugan, 67, was convicted by a jury on 19 December for obstructing federal immigration officers who had come to arrest Eduardo Flores‑Ruiz, an undocumented man due in her courtroom on a state battery charge.

The Trump administration and its allies portrayed her as an activist judge undermining federal law. Republican leaders in Wisconsin's legislature publicly threatened to impeach her if she did not step down.

Two weeks later, she submitted her resignation to Democratic governor Tony Evers, framing her decision as a necessary step to protect what she called the independence of the judiciary.