Last December, former judge Hannah Dugan was convicted on a felony charge of obstructing federal agents; she was just sentenced this week...but avoided jail time.

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Quick recap: She made the decision on her own that an illegal alien who had been arrested should be allowed to escape the ICE agents who were supposed to take him into custody. This alien was a criminal:

Dugan was convicted of aiding Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican national with a history of violent criminal charges, in escaping ICE in April of 2025. According to then-DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, Flores-Ruiz had a rap sheet including ‘strangulation and suffocation, battery and domestic abuse.’

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He was later deported from the United States.

Clearly Flores-Ruiz’s brutality did not bother Dugan at all. In fact, she had no remorse whatsoever for her decision to help the alien escape:

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‘For more than a year, the circumstances of this prosecution have been politicized,’ she said before the sentence was announced. ‘I have been cast as both a scofflaw and a hero. I am neither. I am a public servant who was just trying to do my job.’

Dugan wants us to believe that she was perfectly justified in helping a criminal alien to escape law enforcement and that she was “doing her job.” Her comments were insulting and outrageous to ICE, to those people in the courtroom who could have been endangered, and to the people in the community who could have been his victims if he had escaped. I’d only expect that from a partisan on the Left.

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The prosecutors of the case were serious about holding her accountable for her wrongdoing and breaking of the law. They stated that she had violated her judicial oath, and that she should have been facing around 18 months in jail:

‘Law enforcement officers need to be able to carry out their lawful responsibilities in the manner that is safest for them, the public and the individual they are attempting to detain,’ said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Brad Schimel. ‘Dugan’s reckless and illegal actions interfered with that goal and created unnecessary risks for all involved. For that there needed to be serious consequences.’

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Unfortunately, the sentencing judge, who has a reputation for light sentences, fined Dugan $5,000, no jail time, and not even probation. These were the judge’s comments:

Judge Adelman said from the bench on Wednesday that prison was not necessary. He described Ms. Dugan as ‘an otherwise good person upset by immigrant enforcement’ who had ‘made a bad decision in the moment.’

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‘This isn’t like cases of public corruption where an official sells her office,’ Judge Adelman said before announcing the sentence.

This is a lot like public corruption. The only difference is that Judge Dugan abused her authority for partisan reasons rather than financial ones. But because she's a left-wing hack and buddies with a bunch of other judges, she gets no jail time, keeps her pension and may even be able to keep her law license.

Let’s see if I have this right: Dugan was let off the hook because she was “upset” that a criminal alien was going to be arrested in her courtroom; that she was a “good person” who had a momentary lapse in judgment; that she was willing to break the law to let off a violent lawbreaker; and that although an ordinary citizen would go to jail for this type of felony, Dugan would be spared because she was unlikely to act that way again (especially since she is no longer a judge).

Just one more reason to distrust our justice system.

Image generated by ChatGPT.