Tell Me About Arresting Judges

Really I am asking a Factual Question, but I suppose the Hive Mind will soon go off on a political tangent.

So some law enforcement people elected a Wisconsin judge in her chambers and perp-walked her to a van. The FBI published her mug shot, which was just mean.

-=Link=-

Well, I got my legal training by watching Dragnet. What exactly is wrong with arresting a judge? They did not interfere with an actual session of the court. Is it wrong to arrest a judge in a courthouse? Is there some sort of special procedure for arresting judges?

I think you mean arrested.

Probably. I ought not to post before coffee.

Arresting a judge who committed some crime (murder or bribe or something) is fine. Arresting this judge in her chambers, while she was on the job, who hadn’t done anything actually illegal? That’s some fascist stuff.

It breaks down the separation of powers. Typically, a judge is the master of her own chambers, so ICE marching in and arresting her weakens the judiciary, makes them afraid to perform their constitutional duties.

This is the wrong question. The proper question is, when is it right to arrest a judge in a courthouse, and did that happen here? i.e. was there a criminal warrant for this judge’s arrest?

This is actually not a factual question, but I’ll phrase it in terms that the cult-mind will be able to understand: when you arrest judges without proper basis, this is pretty clearly an attempt at judicial intimidation. Judges are the only check we have against police abuses of power, i.e. arresting people without proper warrants. Baseless arrests of judges are a direct threat against the only thing that prevents us from becoming a police state. Which of course is something that we all understand the conservative tribe-mind actually wants to see, they would love a society where people can just be thrown into jail on the whim of corrupt cops, with no judge to provide a check on the behavior.

Do random feds even have the legal authority to march into a court chamber and do stuff like that, or did they bluff their way past building security?

It is certainly is a bad look.

I presume the average policeman is just sort of oriented to solving problems by arresting whoever is right in front of him. You might say they are spring-loaded in that way.

If you know who the person is, and there seems to be no threat to the public, no threat of flight, it seems to me you could mail the person some sort of summons.

I don’t know the specifics, but in general, when a state and the feds conflict, the feds prevail.

I don’t see any impediment to arresting a sitting judge if there is (arguable) probably cause that they committed/are committing a federal crime.

Of course, this instance looks bad (to anyone with a brain) and is not necessary. But such concerns do not register with the current admin. And it likely appeals to his base.

I dunno. Might be. Could be a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top. Might be the policemen involved exhibiting excessive enthusiasm.

I believe the “policemen” involved were engaged in ICE activities - where intimidation is part of th epackage.

Great way to poison the purportedly factual discussion you say you want to have.

Stranger

The authorities arresting her were FBI. The charge was interfering with ICE authorities. Who use the court appearances as a means of finding people to deport.

Nothing illegal about the FBI arresting a judge if there is actual probable cause for an arrest.

The issues here though are several interconnected and yet separate.

The use of court appearances as a means to target individuals to deport. Those fearful of ICE, which includes lawful residents, will be fearful of showing up to court. Which is not on the public interest.

What are the facts of what she did and how much is bullshit … literally a Trumped up charge.

What counts as refusal to aid and abet ICE actions to use your court as a trap, and what counts as criminal obstruction.

How much of the intent of making the arrest and specifically in this manner (including Patel posting it on social media and publishing the “perp walk”) is to intimidate all judges into better cooperation with their actions. To exert executive branch primacy over the judicial branch. Especially in the context of his past stated desire to arrest journalists and Bondi using the DOJ to target politicians who disagree with Trump’s actions and policies.

Her ‘crime’ was deliberately refusing to cooperate with federal officials trying to serve an administrative warrant to someone who was party to a legal matter before her court. She asked the arresting officers for a criminal or judicial warrant, and they responded that they did not have one. She told them to go arrange the specifics of the arrest with the chief judge, which I guess they did not appreciate or have the patience for.

Nor did they have the patience to make a criminal referral for felony re-entry charges, which would have been completely valid under US law. They might have - wait for it - been able to collaborate with Milwaukee law enforcement to effectuate an arrest, but I guess they didn’t have the time or patience for that. It’s just a lot more red meat for MAGA types to see a lib getting owned.

Based on the details provided, it’s probably fair to question whether allowing her courtroom to be used in such a way that it provided the accused an opportunity to evade ICE officials was appropriate, but I don’t necessarily think it rises to the level of a federal felony, which she’s been charged with.

It seems this whole episode is, unsurprisingly, an attempt to use her courtroom to create a spectacle, which in turn is being used to intimidate other local officials into compulsory cooperation with ICE officials even when the law is unclear that they necessarily have to.

Moderating:

You raise a good point, but next time please flag it rather than effectively attacking the poster.

@Paul_was_in_Saudi, it is a good point that @Stranger_On_A_Train made, don’t let me catch you starting another poison well OP like this or you can expect a warning and not a modnote.

This kind of stuff is not conducive to a non-pit thread.

My primary concern is: for any non-lobotomized witness who lived through January 6th and the Alternate Slate of Electors scheme, and understands the factual differences between Trump’s and the RW media’s version of events, there is no reason whatsoever to take at face value what this administration tells us.

Ever.

And when the stakes are life and liberty? An order of magnitude more so.

Remembering that AG Pam Bondi was an active and vocal participant in the Big Lie is mission critical to this perspective.

So, if you use that as your starting point, what follows is profoundly problematic.

And you must use that as your starting point or understand that you begin most such exercises from a deeply flawed and woefully misinformed starting point.

There is also the question of the need to make an arrest of a sitting judge. Making an arrest and taking someone into custody is done to ensure that they will not take flight and will appear before a court for arraignment. Federal agents know where she works and lives, she’s unlikely to be a flight risk, and the question of whether she used her position to obstruct the lawful conduct of federal agents is really one for the First Judicial District of the County of Milwaukee and the Wisconsin Supreme Court, since she did so using her authority as a judge.

Yes, this was clearly the real objective; to cause state judiciaries (which the US Justice Department has no direct control over) and local officials to cower in fear of reprisal in the form of arrest and prosecution.

Stranger

My hunch is that some (or maybe many or even all) of these ICE enforcement officers are being told, don’t come home empty-handed, that if they do they had better explain the reason, at which point Tom Homan determines to mete out retribution.

It is a major violation of the separation of powers, so if you are going to arrest a judge or legislator, you have better be 10000% sure they committed a crime.
In this specific case, I would trust a Judge to know the law well enough how to stay on this side of legality. Meanwhile I see videos all of the time where cops threaten and arrest people for doing legal stuff and standing on their rights showing they either don’t know or don’t care what obstruction really is.

In case there is any doubt, I do not support ANY of the efforts this administration has been making WRT immigration/deportation. To the contrary, I condemn every aspect of such efforts in the strongest possible terms.

I was simply responding to what the OP presented as a largely factual question:

Take it to the extreme - if a judge was dealing drugs or fucking children behind their bench or in their chambers, would any of us see a problem arresting them then and there? I’m pretty sure the issues of ICE targeting schools/courts/hospitals, or charging people with aiding immigrants and interfering w/ ICE are being covered plenty in several other threads.

Please feel free to close this thread.