'I did the right thing': How one judge is fighting back in support of arrested colleague
Sawyer County, WI Judge Monica Isham on Saturday announced she’ll “refuse to hold court” following the arrest of Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan “if there is no guidance for … and no support for” judges in the state.
Isham sent the letter Saturday to her fellow Wisconsin judges, insisting she has “no intention of allowing anyone be taken out of [her] courtroom by [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and sent to a concentration camp, especially without due process.”
The judge’s announcement comes after Dugan, first elected to the Milwaukee County Circuit Court in 2016, was arrested on Friday by the FBI for “allegedly obstructing federal authorities who were seeking to detain an undocumented immigrant,” NBC News reports.
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Dugan was described by NBC News as “a longtime social justice advocate before she took the bench.”
Isham, in her letter to fellow judges, argued Dugan “stood on her Oath” and “was arrested and charged with felonies for it.”
“I no longer feel protected or respected as a Judge in this administration,” Isham wrote.
Isham also described multiple instances of “racial attacks in [her] court” since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, writing she’s been “called an ‘immigrant,’” was told she has “no jurisdiction over while people in [her] county” and “had a juror loudly proclaim” they would not follow orders “from a brown or black person.”
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As Isham noted, she was “elected as the first woman, first Native American, first minority all together to serve as circuit court judge” in her county.
"If this costs me my job or gets me arrested then at least I know I did the right thing," Isham wrote.
Isham’s colleague “Dugan was arrested and charged with obstruction of an official proceeding on Friday after evidence came to light that she had shielded the migrant from ICE agents, according to a criminal complaint,” Fox News reports. “She was also charged with concealing an individual to prevent discovery and arrest.”
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