Outlaws Judges: Judicial Defiance Destroys Due Process for All

The court, that sacred space wherein the ideals of justice, truth, and accountability are meant to be realized, demands more of its guardians than of any other. When a judge ascends the bench, he does so not merely to arbitrate disputes, but to embody the very principle that law, not whim, rules a free people. Yet in recent years, particularly in matters touching immigration enforcement, we have seen a disturbing betrayal of this foundational trust. The recent case in Wisconsin, wherein Judge Hannah Dugan facilitated the escape of an illegal alien during an active trial, provides a grim and urgent illustration.

Democrats have rushed to frame such acts as bold defenses of "due process" against an allegedly overreaching federal authority. The truth, however, is the exact inverse. When a judge contrives to help an illegal alien evade lawful arrest, she deprives not only the accused, but also his victims and the citizenry itself, of the very due process she purports to defend. She does not guard justice, she supplants it.

Consider the facts of the Wisconsin incident. Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican national, stood trial on three counts of domestic violence-related battery. Federal authorities, executing a valid expedited removal order issued over a decade prior, sought to detain him. Rather than allow legal process to unfold, Judge Dugan, upon learning of ICE's presence, spirited the defendant out of the courtroom through a jury door. Flores-Ruiz, abetted by the very institution tasked with delivering justice, fled.

The betrayal is multilayered. First and most tragically, it strips the defendant of his lawful day in court. Due process, rightly understood, means more than protection from government overreach. It means a full and fair opportunity to answer charges, to confront evidence, and to seek resolution under the rule of law. By aiding in Flores-Ruiz's flight, the judge deprived him of that opportunity. It is no defense to argue she acted for his benefit; one does not aid the accused by denying him the chance to vindicate himself through lawful proceedings.

Second, the judge robbed the victim, a survivor of domestic violence, of her rightful hearing. Victims are not ornamental bystanders to the judicial process, but vital participants. They are entitled to have their grievances heard, their dignity affirmed, and, if the law so determines, to see those who have wronged them held accountable. In telling Flores-Ruiz to flee, literally in front of his victim, the judge silenced her voice, subverted her rights, and extinguished her hope for justice. This is not mercy, it is cruelty masquerading as compassion.

Third, and more broadly, the judge assaulted the due process rights of the citizenry. The American people, through their elected representatives, have established laws governing, domestic violence, immigration, and public safety. They have entrusted enforcement to designated agencies and have built a judicial system to ensure fairness and order. When a judge thwarts this system, she usurps the sovereign will of the people. She substitutes her private moral sympathies for the collective judgment expressed in law. In doing so, she does not merely err; she attacks the very legitimacy of the republic.

The Massachusetts case of Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph illustrates that this is no isolated phenomenon. In 2018, Joseph was indicted for helping an illegal alien escape ICE custody through a courthouse back door. Though the charges were eventually dropped by the Biden administration, the facts remain troubling. Each such instance adds another crack to the edifice of public trust.

Another case that demands attention is that of New Mexico Magistrate Judge Joel Cano. In April 2025, Cano and his wife, Nancy Cano, were arrested for harboring an illegal immigrant and Tren de Aragua gang member, Cristhian Ortega-Lopez, at their Las Cruces home. According to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Canos face charges of evidence tampering after Joel Cano admitted to destroying Ortega-Lopez’s cellphone, which contained images of two decapitated victims, by smashing it with a hammer and disposing of the pieces in a city dumpster to protect him. Bondi further revealed that the Canos provided Ortega-Lopez with assault rifles, including an AR-15 with a suppressor and allowed him to practice at a shooting range. Ortega-Lopez, who illegally entered the U.S. in December 2023, had initially been hired by Nancy Cano for home repairs and was later offered a guesthouse on their property. Following a Homeland Security investigation, Ortega-Lopez was arrested in February 2025 for illegal firearm possession and immigration violations. Joel Cano resigned in March 2025, and the New Mexico Supreme Court permanently barred him from judicial office. As Bondi emphasized, “No one is above the law.”

Some defenders of judicial nullification argue that courthouses must be "safe spaces" free from immigration enforcement, lest witnesses and victims fear to come forward. Yet this argument collapses under scrutiny. No one suggests that every courthouse must become a fortress policed by ICE. Rather, it is a simple proposition that an individual, subject to lawful removal proceedings and caught in the commission of new crimes, should not be shielded by the very institution tasked with adjudicating those crimes. To protect an accused batterer from lawful arrest is not to protect the vulnerable; it is to expose them further.

Moreover, the claim that such judicial actions uphold "due process" reflects a profound misunderstanding. Due process is not the avoidance of legal consequences, but their orderly administration. It is the right to a hearing, not the right to escape one. It is the promise of fair procedures, not the promise of immunity. It was Flores-Ruiz's right to be tried, to defend himself, to challenge the government's case. That right was snatched away not by ICE agents, but by the judge herself.

The stakes are not merely theoretical. When judges defy immigration enforcement, they create real dangers. In the Flores-Ruiz case, FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed that federal agents had to chase down the fugitive on foot, placing themselves and bystanders at risk. The orderly surrender of individuals subject to lawful detention orders is not an abstraction; it is a necessity for public safety.

Those who would excuse such judicial lawlessness must confront a difficult question: what remains of the rule of law if judges may pick and choose which laws they will uphold? James Madison, the father of our Constitution, warned that "if men were angels, no government would be necessary." Judges are not angels. They are men and women, bound as all others are by the chains of the Constitution and the laws enacted under it.

Judges hold a unique place in our constitutional order. Their authority is premised on the belief that they, more than most, will subordinate their personal passions to the demands of the law. When that compact is broken, the consequences ripple outward. Victims lose faith that their suffering will be acknowledged. Defendants lose confidence that their rights will be respected. Citizens lose trust that the system operates for their benefit rather than for ideological favors.

It is tempting, in the emotional heat of immigration debates, to view the law as a blunt instrument needing circumvention. But history teaches otherwise. When officials, cloaked with public authority, arrogate to themselves the power to nullify law, it is the weakest and most vulnerable who suffer first. Recall the era of "Massive Resistance" following Brown v. Board of Education, when local officials defied federal desegregation orders. They too claimed to act in defense of higher moral imperatives. The result was not justice, but prolonged suffering and delayed progress.

Similarly, judges who sabotage immigration enforcement today do not advance human rights; they degrade them. They trade the universal protections of lawful process for the arbitrary dictates of personal preference. In doing so, they unwittingly invite greater executive overreach, as public frustration with lawlessness mounts and demands for order intensify.

To preserve the republic, we must demand more of our judges. We must insist that they remain faithful servants of the law, not its secret saboteurs. If a judge believes an immigration law to be unjust, she may resign and advocate for its repeal. What she may not do, consistent with her oath, is to subvert it under color of judicial office.

In the case of Judge Dugan, the wheels of accountability are now turning. Arrested and charged with obstruction of a federal proceeding and concealing an individual from arrest, she faces potential prison time. Whatever the ultimate verdict, the broader lesson must not be missed. The rule of law depends not only on the virtue of its citizens but, above all, on the integrity of its judges.

The American experiment, unique in history, rests upon the conviction that law is no respecter of persons. No king, no priest, no judge may set himself above it. In the long twilight struggle between law and passion, we must stand unwavering for the former. For once a judge, sworn to uphold the law, instead counsels defiance, she ceases to be a judge at all. She becomes, in essence, an outlaw in robes. And the day we accept such conduct without protest is the day we concede that justice is no longer blind, but dead.

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