The rule of law can’t survive if judges like Hannah Dugan can obstruct justice
Former Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan got off with a wrist-slap for obstructing justice; we hope the feds appeal, seeking a tougher sentence — because if those sworn to provide justice instead oppose it, the rule of law cannot survive.
US District Judge Lynn Adelman, a Bill Clinton appointee, handed Dugan a mere $5,000 fine for her crime — helping felon Eduardo Flores-Ruiz escape from ICE agents in April 2025.
The average sentence for obstruction is 16 months in prison; she only spent less than one day in federal custody, and likely won’t even lose her law license.
Adelman said Dugan was “an otherwise good person” who “made a bad decision in the moment” because she was “upset by immigrant enforcement.”
Sorry: Good people who do bad things deserve serious punishment, especially judges who put their private views above their oaths of impartiality to frustrate completely legitimate law enforcement.
She abused her judicial power to sneak a felon out her private courtroom exit, then tried to distract the agents as he fled; that the feds soon nabbed him anyway is immaterial, as is the fact that she soon resigned from the bench.
Hannah Dugan deserves no more mercy than Southern judges who enabled segregationist violence against the civil-rights movement: If justice isn’t blind, it’s not justice at all.
