One event last week that failed to get the legacy media attention it deserved was the conviction of Mrs. Judge Hannah Dugan on charges of obstructing federal officers. Dugan, you’ll recall, is the svelte and ravishing jurist who abandoned her bench last April to assist criminal defendant Eduardo Flores-Ruiz in eluding ICE officers sent to pick him up for deportation. (His second go-around.)

Dugan herself was arrested by the FBI a week later and arraigned a few days later. At the same time, she was suspended from the bench by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. She was indicted by a federal grand jury on May 13.

It’s somewhat surprising that the trial occurred only a little over seven months after the offense, particularly since Dugan’s lawyers went through the standard rigmarole of calling for dismissal, including a claim that she possessed some kind of “judicial immunity” equivalent to the executive immunity possessed by the president. (In fact, her lawyers went so far as to cite last year’s Supreme Court decision Trump v. United States. I kid you not.)

And so, on Dec. 18, after a three-day trial, Dugan was found guilty on one felony count of obstruction. The jury also found her innocent of the charge of harboring a fugitive, which she didn’t really do.

It remains to be seen what her sentence will be. One thing for sure, she can’t stay on the bench. In fact, it’s a little strange that she hasn’t yet resigned to “spend more time with her family.” But that’s what lefties are like.

Dugan failed to testify in her own defense, so it remains something of a mystery exactly what she thought she was doing. She must have known that Flores couldn’t escape and that ICE would catch up with him one way or another. It’s likely that this is simply one more case of left-wing performance art, in which the results don’t matter just as long as a public “statement” is made. Lefties have been doing this kind of thing and getting away with it for so long that it’s become a Pavlovian response. Ring a bell, and here they come, blocking cars, gluing themselves to things, and getting arrested.

It’s refreshing to see that Dugan did not in fact get away with it. This conviction is close to being a first as regards out-of-control judges. Will it have any effect on jurists now engaged in the judges’ revolt against Donald Trump and his administration? That remains to be seen. It’s unlikely to influence fanatics like James Boasberg, a combination of Savonarola and Roland Freisler, but it may cool the jets of the myriad minor-league judges who lose their minds every time a federal agency orders a tree pruned. In any case, the Dugan conviction is a pleasant surprise going into the Christmas season. We look forward to more like it in the new year.

Image: AT via Magic Studio