Judge Dugan Resigns, Will Retain Pension

Judge Hannah Dugan was convicted on one felony count of obstruction of federal agents last month. By the next day she was facing an ultimatum from Robin Vos, Speaker of the State Assembly: Resign or face impeachment.

“Wisconsinites deserve to know their judiciary is impartial and that justice is blind. Judge Hannah Dugan is neither, and her privilege of serving the people of Wisconsin has come to an end.”

Vos continued to press that angle in the days that followed. By the end of last month, he made it clear he hadn’t forgotten about Judge Dugan.

Vos said lawmakers plan to introduce a bill that would cut off pay to judges who are convicted of a crime.

“This is standard practice,” Vos said. “I don’t think it’s right that someone could say, ‘Well, we’re going to appeal for a year or two and keep getting paid.’”.

When Dugan’s case went to trial, she was removed from the schedule as a judge but retained her salary while the case was moving forward. But apparently, Judge Dugan decided Speaker Vos had a point about continuing to receive that salary indefinitely. Over the weekend she announced her resignation in a letter to Gov. Tony Evers.

“As you know, I am the subject of unprecedented federal legal proceedings, which are far from concluded but which present immense and complex challenges that threaten the independence of our judiciary. I am pursuing this fight for myself and for our independent judiciary.

“However, the Wisconsin citizens that I cherish deserve to start the year with a judge on the bench in Milwaukee County Branch 31 rather than have the fate of that Court rest in a partisan fight in the state legislature.”…

Dugan, 66, a nine-year veteran of the bench, said in her letter to Evers that her resignation was effective immediately. She called her time on the bench “the honor of my life and a daily blessing to beentrusted by Wisconsinites as their elected judge.”

One way or another, Judge Dugan was going to lose her job because of the conviction. There’s apparently a rule in the Wisconsin state constitution which prevents convicted felons from collecting a state salary, so she was almost certainly going to lose on this point. However, her pension, which kicks in with her resignation, appears to be safe.

A spokesperson for the state Department of Employee Trust Funds, which administers pensions and other benefits, said the agency doesn’t release information about specific individuals’ payments or their pensions “because this information is considered confidential and not subject to open records law.”

But the agency spokesperson, Mark Lamkins, added that criminal charges typically do not result in someone losing their Wisconsin Retirement System pension.

“With a limited exception, Wisconsin state law does not require an individual to forfeit their WRS pension because of being terminated or criminal charges,” Lamkins wrote in a Jan. 5 email to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “A WRS pension is an earned benefit of employment based on an individual’s contributions and eligibility and cannot be taken away.”

In short, her salary was going away whether she liked it or not, but her pension can’t be touched. But based on her 9 years of service it appears that pension will be relatively small compared to her previous salary of $174,000 per year.

Dugan plans to continue her appeals in the meantime. A sentencing date for her conviction still has not been set by the judge handling her case, which is unusual. She is facing a maximum sentence of five years in prison but no one thinks she’ll get that. My guess is she’ll get some sort of probation and won’t spend a day in jail.

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