After Damaging Testimony, the Government Rests Its Case Against Judge Dugan

This is flying by much faster than I expected. After calling several more witnesses today, the government rested its case. The defense plans to call four witnesses tomorrow and then we should have closing arguments tomorrow afternoon. That means the jury will get this case Friday and we could have a decision before the weekend.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This morning we had some more testimony that hurt Judge Dugan’s case, particularly the testimony of Chief Judge Carl Ashley. He testified that there was a draft proposal for rules about how to handle ICE arrests. However, that proposal had not been put in place and, even if it had, Judge Ashley testified he and the other judges had no right to interfere in arrests taking place in the public hallway of the courthouse, nor did the draft require anyone to visit his office.

Even more damning, he testified that he’d asked Judge Dugan to call him (via a text message) and then changed his mind after deciding it might be better for her if he didn’t ask her to explain herself. Why? Because anything she texted or said would could be incriminating.

Around 11 am this morning, Judge Dugan’s clerk took the stand. Alan Freed testified that he was “outraged” that ICE had shown up in the courthouse and that he called one member of the arrest team a “fascist.”

“I called him a fascist,” Freed said.

In the courtroom, he had been shown footage of him walking past one of the agents, and the prosecution asked what Freed said to the agent.

Earlier in his testimony, he was asked about ICE’s presence in the courthouse.

“I was upset and a little bit outraged,” Freed said.

So maybe consider that when taking the rest of his testimony into account. He seemed to be having trouble remembering some of the details.

Freed said he then heard from an attorney in the courtroom that Dugan was in the hallway confronting people, and he “vaguely” recalled poking his head out to see what was going on…

The deputy clerk said he heard someone from Dugan’s direction tell Flores-Ruiz’s attorney to leave the courtroom and come back. He could not recall if he ever heard a judge tell an attorney to leave and come back without a client. 

Freed added that off-the-record cases are typically heard quickly. He said Flores-Ruiz’s off-the-record case was quicker than most.

She rushed through the case to get Eduardo Flores-Ruiz out the (back) door. Prosecutors played the audio where Judge Dugan mentioned sending them “down the stairs.” Freed confirmed that Dugan had said she would “get he heat” for doing this. 

After a lunch break, the government called Brittney Ewing, a victim witness advocate, to the stand. She was there in court that day with the victims in the Flores-Ruiz case. She again added to the sense that something very unusual happened that morning.

Ewing testified that Flores-Ruiz had been walking in and out that morning, but she eventually saw him and his attorney walk through the jury door in Dugan’s courtroom. She said Dugan was near the door at that time.

Ewing said she did not know what was going on when she saw Flores-Ruiz go through the door, and she had never seen a defendant go through the door. She still expected the case to be called.

When she explained what had happened to the victims, she said they seemed “confused.”

Next on the stand was Mercedes de la Rosa, the defense attorney for Eduardo Flores-Ruiz. She claimed to have not heard Judge Dugan telling her to go down the stairs.

She testified no one told her to go down the stairs or that there was a public staircase. While an audio recording indicated Dugan said, “Go down the stairs,” de la Rosa testified she didn’t hear it that morning.

“My brain was spinning,” she testified. “It was Good Friday, and I didn’t have any food or coffee that day.”

Who knows, maybe she really didn’t hear it. Maybe that’s why she led her client into the hallway instead of down the stairs. But the issue in this trial isn’t what the attorney heard it’s what Judge Dugan said and intended. The audio recording proves her intent was for them to go down the stairs, not into the hallway and the reason for that is obvious.

Frankly, given the celebrations of Judge Cervera by the other public defenders who were present that day, I really doubt Mercedes de la Rosa was so wide-eyed about what was happening. The judge was trying to help her client avoid ICE. She must have understood that even if she’s refusing to admit it now.

After one more witness, the court reporter was called to the stand. Joan Butz testified that she had never before heard Judge Dugan tell an attorney to take their client out the non-public door.

Butz testified that she heard Dugan direct the attorney to take her client out and come back to get a date. She said she had never heard Dugan direct an attorney to do that.

Butz is the person who offered to show the attorney and Flores-Ruiz how to exit the hallway by the stairs. She explained there was concern they might mistakenly take the “wrong” door. And the wrong door in this case meant the one to the hallway where the arrest team was waiting.

Butz testified that she asked Dugan if she needed to show a woman, who she later learned to be Flores-Ruiz’s defense attorney, where to go to find the stairs. 

Butz said, because she was a newer attorney, there was concern the attorney would not know which door to go through. She said the “wrong” door was the door that led into the public hallway and the door to the stairs would be the “right” door in this instance.

The court reporter testified there was concern about Flores-Ruiz and her attorney going out the “wrong” door. Butz testified that if the attorney and her client went out the “wrong” door, they would encounter the “ICE people.”

Butz testified there was concern between her and Dugan that they could get in trouble if Flores-Ruiz and his attorney went out the “wrong” door.

The defense plans to call just four witnesses tomorrow.

Dugan’s attorney Steve Biskupic said the defense plans to call four witnesses but first they would be making a motion to dismiss, which is routine in cases. Under Rule 29, defense typically makes a motion to dismiss, saying the prosecution’s evidence is legally insufficient.

The case will may head to the jury as soon as Thursday.

 And it’s still not clear if Judge Dugan will be taking the stand in her own defense.

Attorney Steve Biskupic said in court, “It will be the decision of our client.”

Will she or won’t she testify? After three days of testimony, it really seems to me that Judge Dugan is cooked. Absent jury nullification from someone looking to strike a pose for the resistance, she should be found guilty. So maybe she’ll take a chance and take the stand knowing she’s got very little else gong for her. 

But I’m not an attorney so take my speculation with a big grain of salt. One thing is certain. Tomorrow morning is the defense’s last chance to turn this around.