Arrests are made in court houses all the time. |
Makes sense - removes any conflict of interest or impartiality in the court. They would do this for any other judge facing charges (warranted or unwarranted...tbd by a court of law). |
It's important to note that the Wisconsin Supreme Court is controlled by a Liberal 4-3 majority.
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but not in a court room...see the difference? |
That's a difference, but nothing about this case was going to, or did happen in a court room. Have you not kept up? |
ICE had multiple opportunities to arrest the person outside the courtroom but wanted to make a show of doing it in the courtroom. The judge didn't want to be a party to the show Patel was hoping for. |
Do you have a link to a reliable news source that is reporting this? |
I don’t think this is accurate. One ICE agent is already facing contempt for arresting someone in the middle of their trial. They can’t arrest people when they’re about to having a hearing or trial. |
WRONG. I don't feel very strongly about this case, but speaking as a lawyer with considerable immigration law experience, this is a highly partisan analysis that completely misstates both the law and the facts that have been publicized. She is going to have an uphill battle here to articulate a legitimate basis on which she interfered with this arrest. 1. Administrative warrants issued by ICE do indeed authorize agents to make arrests. 2. There is no evidence that the agents were trying to make an arrest in the middle of proceeding as opposed to waiting for the proceeding to take place and conclude before making their arrest. It's clear they saw the defendant in the courtroom, but didn't rush to seize him and were instead waiting. 3. The agents were not asking the judge to make the arrest or enforce the warrant. All of the available facts make clear that they intended there to make the arrest themselves. So, the issue here is not that the judge exercised her discretion to decline to enforce an administrative warrant, but rather that the judge prevented the agents from acting within the scope of their duties to make an arrest they were legally entitled to make. Moreover, the chief judge had not yet issued any policy barring agents from making an arrest in any part of the courthouse. He made that clear when she had him called before she let the defendant go. So, she can't even argue that she was enforcing a courthouse policy (which would not override an administrative warrant anyway, but would at least provide some good-faith, objective basis for her interference beyond her personal whim). The judge's concern here appears to have been optics or politics, neither of which entitled her to interfere with the agents' arrest. Time will tell she can cobble together some legitimate basis, but this is not looking good for her if the government chooses to pursue the case beyond this initial arrest. |
+1 |
Yes. Everything that has come out has shown that 1) they had the correct warrant needed to make the arrest and 2) her actions impeded their lawful duties. I'm as liberal as they come, but the law is the law. This is what we want: we want the agents following the correct procedure to deport people. This is the correct procedure from the agents. The judge will certainly have an uphill battle and her career is done. She's cooked. |
The last few posts are an oasis of reason in a world of hyperbole and misinformation. |
I'm the lawyer PP and I agree with you that the available facts suggest the agents here did what we want agents to do. They were waiting patiently, they identified themselves, they did not try to interfere with proceedings, and they did not get into an altercation with the judge, even as she interfered with their duties and was reportedly hostile. She is not the first judge to behave this way. As a matter of respect and to avoid political disputes, DOJ typically gives wide latitude to misbehaving judges. This deference is simply a policy choice, however, not legal entitlement. If this judge lets the way partisans have cast her as a martyr go to her head and decides to fight this out, her head just might roll here. She'd be well advised to negotiate. |
ICE has authority to arrest in a courtroom as well. |
Lawyer PP here. Thanks! I expected to come back to attacks accusing me of being a fake lawyer, shill, or worse. ![]() |