SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Beat the Prosecution, presented by Northern Virginia criminal defense and DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz, where we are here to regularly present you information and ideas for beating your prosecution as best as possible. Nothing on any of our media sources, such as our podcast or website, is legal advice. John Katz only provides legal advice to current clients or for individuals who have paid for a consultation. And now for your host, John Katz.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Hello, everybody. This is John Katz at Beat the Prosecution. I am a criminal defense and DUI defense lawyer in Northern Virginia. I am delighted to have with us Steve Kravit. You will see he is a lawyer in Milwaukee. You will see there's a pattern when civil liberties are violated. I bring up some of these things because we have to go deeper than just some sound bites on the media. Steve Cravit is a lawyer in Milwaukee, as I say. This is about what happened with Judge Hannah Dugan, who's a state court judge in Wisconsin, being arrested after she helped show this uh apparently non-United States citizen uh defendant and his lawyer out a side door into where? A public hallway. And now the grand jury is meeting today, as Steve says. Isn't that interesting? I invited Steve last week to come on the show, and the grand jury just happens to be meeting today. Steve Kravit, please introduce yourself to everyone, including what the relevance is of you to this whole story and what your background is of going on the dark side of federal prosecution before coming to the side of light.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Well, thank you, John, for the opportunity. Uh, my name is Steve Kravit. I've been practicing in Milwaukee uh for 50 years, the first five of which, or close to five of which, were as an assistant U.S. attorney here. So I've been a federal prosecutor and uh since that time started my own firm, do a lot of uh white-collar federal criminal defense. Um Milwaukee and Wisconsin is kind of a backwater for federal litigation. Uh, unlike uh big cities or in states where there's a lot of government, we don't have any of that. So uh it's very hard for there to be specialist federal lawyers here, much less federal defense lawyers. Uh, I think John can understand that uh in a slow-moving uh white-collar district, there's only three, four, or five cases a year where a defendant can pay fees, and the rest end up being appointed cases and the like. We have an Indian reservation in this uh district that throws off some cases. But um, so there aren't very many federal defense practitioners, and I can be confident to tell you I know them all. Uh, I also know most of the prosecutors, although some of the ones in this this case, some of them are new, newish. Uh, and I also know how things work here, and that's why this case, this uh obstruction of justice effective case, actually, it's a uh uh uh uh obstruction of service uh case under section 18 USC 1501, and uh the much more serious charge. Um uh sorry, the 1071 is the concealing of person from arrest charge, that's a misdemeanor. And then uh 18 USC 1505 is obstruction of proceedings, which uh requires the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Judge Dugan corruptly obstructed or impeded the proper administration of justice in this case. Uh, I think a burden that may well be insurmountable. Um, but um I do not have a client in this, although I know all the lawyers, uh uh and I do have some uh uh inkling of how the matter ought to be defended, whether they're going to defend it that way, that'll be up to them. It turns out uh when I check the sources today, the federal grand jury in Milwaukee is meeting today, and there's reason for that. Um if she is not indicted by a federal grand jury on the felony charge today, then on on Wednesday or tomorrow, I believe, there is a scheduled preliminary hearing on the complaint. So, uh John, maybe for your viewers I can explain a little bit about that procedure. Is that okay?

SPEAKER_01 4:26

What I'd like to do though, before we go to the procedure, let's make sure people understand the story and get a little bit of the backstory. Fair enough. So I first found out about Steve Cravitt on a national lawyers listserv. He pointed, uh posted a very pointed and erudite uh uh posting about his opinion about Hannah Dugan. So Hannah Dugan in late April uh was arrested in the courthouse. Outrageous, rather than just being notified, hey, there's a uh there's a warrant for your rest. Uh where where goes separation of powers? Where goes federalism? So Republicans like to talk about federalism only when it suits them. Well, I Trump is not necessarily uh a traditional Republican by any sense. He's a populist, he's whatever he is. Uh look, I've got a lot of uh I represent people who are Trump supporters, anti-Trump, love jazz, love Musac, which I can't stomach. Musac, drink prune juice, I couldn't stomach that. So I'll I'll defend anyone. So this is not an anti-Trump show. This is a pro-Civil Liberties episode here, and it's a pro-Civil Liberties show. Uh so Steve can give you the background more, but essentially what happened as I read it and is very public, is that uh Judge Hannah Dugan in uh over in Wisconsin, uh, she found out that there were uh immigration agents uh trolling in the hallway to arrest a litigant, a criminal defendant who was in her courtroom. Uh and uh essentially what happened is the Biden administration uh put a hold on this kind of activity uh from when Trump was in his first administration. And of course, that's one of the first things that Trump's administration overturned when they started. And what uh the Biden directive was that uh if there are going to be uh immigration arrests over in courthouses, there better be something exigent uh or close to it. Uh but let's face it, once you remove that kind of limitation, it's kind of like uh bear uh going after spawning salmon. It's easy then to uh get the names of the litigants in court and do an AI search or whatever it is and find out who is not listed as being in the U.S. uh lawfully or who is uh in the U.S. uh lawfully, but is not a United States citizen and maybe is saying something anti-Israel, uh bigoted or whatever else that uh is then going to get uh Secretary of State Rubio and anyone else trying to deport people uh under the McCarron Walter Act, which is uh has plenty of unconstitutional provisions there, and it is a McCarthy era uh uh statute involving immigration from the 1950s. So it's uh as uh as uh Mr. Cravit. Remind me your name. Remind me your first name. Steve. Steve. As Steve had pointed out, the uh the judge showed the the lawyer and this non-united citizen out a side door, true, not the main door, but it went into a main hallway, and shortly after this came this arrest. Was this arrest uh and uh prosecution in federal court meant to just be for this individual case? No, this is meant to uh chill what other judges are doing. I am uh formulating what I'm going to say to the uh state supreme court and uh uh state uh appellate court chief judge in uh uh in Virginia about what needs to be done here and to find out what efforts are being made to support uh separation of powers and federalism here in Virginia. I don't know of any uh one way or the other, and also to check at least with my county uh chief judges on that. There is also a uh a judge named Monica Esham or Eshock, I think, in the same courthouse, who there was news that she said she wouldn't take cases uh after this was going on if things didn't change. I have no update on that, and apparently Steve uh doesn't either. So, with that, Steve, did I get that right?

SPEAKER_02 8:37

And and words are pretty much by honestly. As you know, John, uh cases are based on facts. So let's do a quick run through of the facts so that your viewers can visualize what happened here. This was a planned uh courthouse raid by six agents of the federal government, two of which one was ICE and one was Homeland Security. Those people are charged with rounding up immigrants, I would imagine. But two of them were FBI agents and two of them were DEA agents. And now we have seen a pattern of this borrowing agents here, there, and everywhere. Wisconsin, as I opened up, uh, said I said there isn't a lot of federal activity here. There are only, I believe, 10 or 12 DEA agents in the whole state. Their job is to interdict drugs. There were no drugs alleged or part of this particular bust. So 20% of the DEA workforce was on let's go to the courthouse and arrest an immigrant duty, which to me is part of the outrage. So what happened is Mr. Ruiz, who is the alleged illegal immigrant, was scheduled for a court appearance on a misdemeanor battery charge, not drugs, not anything massive. He had a fight with his roommates. So he's in court, charged with misdemeanor battery. The uh ICE people get the idea, or the Homeland Security people learn that this appearance is going to happen. And in their office here in Milwaukee, uh some um head of office, uh, not a judge, issues what's called an administrative warrant. And that is a warrant not based on anybody's determination of probable cause except the head of the office in Milwaukee. And the uh administrative warrant, which is peculiar to uh ICE and Homeland Security, uh, is an arrest warrant, but it's a warrant to take someone in for questioning, uh, further questioning. And it's not clear whether that warrant is enforceable anywhere or everywhere. So six agents plan to go to the Milwaukee courthouse, and their idea, as they said in their complaint and swore to this, was that it's a good place to arrest people in the public area because they have to go through security to get into the courthouse. So therefore, they know uh Mr. Ruiz is not armed. Nobody around him is armed because he goes through security. Now they're very clever agents, so they were undercover and what some of them were undercover, some of them weren't. They watched Mr. Ruiz enter the courthouse, go through screening, and had no weapons. Let's freeze-frame right there. If you're there to arrest an immigrant, that's when you arrest him. You know he has no weapon, there's been no fuss caused anywhere, there is no reason to go up for a misdemeanor appearance in court. It's not like he's going to get convicted of a felony, and then they can remove him for that. There was no reason to go to the court appearance at all. They identified him, he had no uh weapon for sure. They could have arrested him right there, but they didn't. So leave that as a question to yourself as to why they didn't. Now they go up to the sixth floor where this courthouse is, courtroom is, and they go in and they let the proceed and as the proceedings start. Now, this is a busy misdemeanor courtroom. There's eight or ten cases that morning. That's what Judge Dugan is assigned to misdemeanors. Uh, John does uh uh misdemeanor work, I'm sure, and I have done it in the past, and it's a courtroom's a zoo. There's lawyers everywhere, there's you know, it's you no trial is going to happen. It's going to be some kind of preliminary proceeding. And uh judges often uh set when people appear, when they don't. People who come without lawyers go last. It's just that's the way it works. So this crowded courtroom is opened up. There are two identified ice slash uh homeland security agents. The other two are sitting in the background undercover, like they're ordinary people in the courthouse. Uh, and um they tell the courtroom deputy when she opens the door that they're there to arrest Ruiz. And the courtroom deputy goes and tells the judge. Now the uh this observer, this uh agent says, Oh, she looked angry. Okay. Anger is not a crime, not where I come from. She looked angry, and she should have been. Why would she allow her courtroom to be disrupted by an arrest like this when she's got other people to deal with and so forth? So she's she comes out, says, Do you have a warrant? And the agent says, I have a warrant, does not show it to her. She says, Is it an administrative warrant? He says, Yes. She says, Go see the chief judge. We're we're putting a policy together about arresting in the courthouse. And she sends them to the chief judge who's down the hall, uh, goes back into her courtroom scheduling cases. Um, by the way, the agents had identified that Ruiz and his lawyer were in the courtroom. So now uh this agent talks about how there was hush discussion or this or that, and uh Judge Dugan proceeds to call part of her calendar, and at some point she motions to Ruiz and his lawyer to come up. There's a discussion. This is all witnessed by a deputy. Okay. And at that point, she opens a side door, the jury room door, and they go out the jury room door. As of right now, that's the evidence against Judge Dugan. She opened a side door and they went out the side door. And um then what happened is they went out the side door, but here's the deal: there's no secret way out of the Milwaukee County Courthouse. The side door goes to the hallway, the public hallway, about 15 feet away from the front door. That's the way the judge has to go in and out, that's the way the jurors have to go in and out, that's the way those two doors are the only ways in and out of the courtroom.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

So let me let me ask you this then, Steve. So uh even though it was a public hallway, would that have been a way to have evaded the agents?

SPEAKER_02 14:39

Well, it'd be hard to advance.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Like in a side hallway, for instance.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Yeah, there was no side hallway. Let me see if I can uh do this for you. I have an actual video, which I've never shared with anybody. Yeah, I think I do I have it.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

This is our scoop today on beat the prosecution.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Oh, well, well, well, before you get too excited, I'm not very good with this stuff. So um where is it? Friggin' video. Uh screens, screens advanced, layouts. Let me try again. I'm sorry. Uh in any event, uh I was up in the courthouse the other day for a hearing, and I walked up to the sixth floor to look, and I was shocked to see how close together these doors are. I took a quick video with my phone and uh let's see, where is this? Baker gallery. Uh let's try gallery. No, that doesn't work. Anyway, and uh it shows uh the how close together these things are. Let me see if I can bring this in here. Uh no. Um, I'm sorry, I I just can't I can't manage it uh uh quickly.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Okay, if you find it later, we can add it to our line. Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

So anyway, what you'll see is there's uh view of the door, and Judge Dugan's name's still hanging there, even though she's not judging right now. And then you move this way about 15 feet, there's the other door. Okay, so in addition to that, the agent says, Well, I'm undercover, the other agents are talking to the chief judge, and I see these two come out, and um, I don't speak Spanish, so I don't know what they're saying. Well, let's freeze frame there. What is a DEA agent doing who doesn't speak Spanish? That's right. Right? He doesn't speak Spanish. And what's he doing on this gig if he doesn't speak Spanish? They're arresting a Spanish guy, right? And so the guy and his uh lawyer are talking, and they don't know he's an undercover agent, and they start walking down the hallway, the public hallway on the sixth floor. Not running, not looking for escape routes, walking down the hallway. Then the agent says, Oh, they passed the first bank of elevators. That's suspicious. They could have gone down that first bank of elevators. Then I took a picture of the sign next to the first bank of elevators, which everyone was in that courthouse except apparently these federal agents know, is that only one set of elevators goes to the parking area, and it's not that one, it's the next one down.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

And there's a sign that says, go to the other elevator if there's a parking, if you want to go parking. But that didn't stop the agent from saying that's suspicious. He follows them. That's freeze frame, could have arrested him right there. He follows them, goes into that side elevator with them. He's in the elevator with what he knows is an unarmed immigrant and his lawyer, uh, and could have arrested him there, could have used his radio and said, when this door opens, here's the arrest. Doesn't do any of that. Let's him get out of the elevator, exit the courthouse where a phalanx of agents try to pounce on him and he runs, and then they catch him. A completely avoidable, completely avoidable consequence. So that's the those are the facts. Now, that guy's in jail in a federal facility nearby. Here is the only potential, as far as I'm concerned, where there could possibly be any kind of a case against Judge Dugan. And that would be if the Spanish-speaking uh defendant or his lawyer says that Judge Dugan told her, hey, there's ICE agents out there, you gotta get out of here. I distracted them and sent them to the chief judge. You better go now. We don't know whether that happened. Uh, but this morning, on the way into the grand jury, it was observed that the lawyer for Ruiz was on the way into the grand jury. So I think Ruiz is in jail. So I I would say they are seeking the testimony of that lawyer. I don't know whether there's a privilege issue potentially, maybe not, for what the judge said. But uh clearly the government is seeking that uh testimony. Now, six or seven days goes by after this incident, and during that time, uh there's a debate in the U.S. Attorney's Office, which I know from uh sources, and they decide that they are going to uh uh charge uh Judge Dugan. Now, when I say they, I mean a coterie of assistant U.S. attorneys who are willing to do the new Justice Department bidding. Um John knows and I know that uh assistant U.S. attorneys, this office has 40 of them, um are hired, and they're in theory they are um not federally protected employees, but in the last 30 years they have been. They uh are paid sort of in the GS system. And that the the the line A USAs are not usually fired when the administrations change. It's a it's a permanent job. That didn't always wasn't always that way before about 1965 when the when the administrations changed, usually almost all the lawyers were fired, and new ones were hired. That's not been true for years until now. Um, when this Justice Department said, if you can't buy into our program, you're out of here. And then they looked into your background, and if you didn't buy into their program or you were too woke, they just fired you.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

So anyway, uh you mean I wouldn't be hired for that if I applied to the case.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Sorry, John, there's no job for you. Anyway, so uh uh the uh deputy head of that office is somebody who I don't particularly uh respect from other cases, and sure enough, she's the one who signed uh the complaint and you know, drafted it and signed it. And then a magistrate who is the magistrate assigned, uh Judge Drees uh did uh say that there was probable cause. Now, nobody tells the magistrate how they're gonna do the arrest or whatever. All he does is determine probable cause, and then an arrest warrant is issued. The next calculated aspect of this is that before they serve that arrest warrant, um, there's coordination with the attorney general and with the head of the FBI. When I say attorney general, I don't mean the U.S. attorney, I mean the attorney general, Pam Bondy, and uh the head of the FBI, Cash Patel. I can tell you in in the my last 50 years of practice, I can think of one case much more sensational where there was ever a statement by a main justice. Right. Okay. This one, they went into the courthouse, they uh made sure that Judge uh Dugan was on her way to work, uh walking and wearing, you know, getting ready to put her judicial robes on, and then publicly arrested her, what we call in the trade a perp walk. Uh and did they arrest her before she had finished her docket for the day or still? Oh yeah, on the way in, they were. Yes, in the courthouse, in the public, and took a picture and published it, which is completely against Department of Justice uh U.S. Attorney Manual regulations, but those don't matter to this group.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

But in any event, perp walks aren't supposed to be done at the federal level.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

Well, they're not supposed to be done unless there is a reason to uh a law enforcement reason like to you know identify someone or find another PERP. Okay. But there was no reason here other than publicity. And within an hour, Cash Patel issued a uh press release about this with the picture. And then within two hours, um the attorney general of the United States uh said, Judges, beware. So you tell me, folks, being clever, avid uh listeners and interested in justice, you tell me what their purpose was. Was it to really arrest and put Judge Dugan in jail, or was it to send a message to every other judge, every other uh person in law enforcement about what's going to happen to them if they don't fall down and play dead when the ICE agents are around? Uh so that's that's the actual story.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Now, like I said, this is a good time, I think, Steve, to jump in and say why this is so important to me, this story, and uh probably for you too. Uh, you know, I talk about separation of powers and federalism, and I'm not just talking on an intellectual basis. Uh we, you know, I think people on both sides, prosecutors and uh criminal defense lawyers, want uh non-United States citizens to come to court uh when they're required. Now, of course, I love it when an opposing witness doesn't show up, but uh I want my witnesses to show up. And uh so this is about parties and witnesses uh not feeling cowed from coming to court uh just because uh they're worried about being arrested at the courthouse. The other thing is that uh judges shouldn't have to feel like they're on pins and needles about whether they're gonna be ICE agents all over the court, uh courthouse hallways interrupting uh their schedules. We do need separation of powers. And uh the question now is to what extent are there uh any courthouses right now in the United States on the state or federal level that are putting any limitations on people coming into the courthouse armed, coming into the courthouse uh uh looking to do any arrests at all? Uh, you know, and this this can go beyond this can go beyond immigration arrests. You know, of course, we see arrests of people who have open uh open arrest warrants in the courthouse, maybe by sheriff's deputies, for instance, but there there have to be some limits on it. What are your thoughts on that stuff?

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Yeah, for sure. And there's a lot of things people aren't thinking about. For example, this could never occur in a federal courthouse. Okay, the federal judges all over the country would never allow ICE agents to be pulling people out of their courtrooms uh in and and in their hallways. Okay. Their hallways are sacrosanct, they're for people with business in the court only. But that's not true when the way the feds treat the states. And let me let me just also say you say, yeah, people need to have access to their courthouse. This is where justice is, it should be a safe space. Uh, and I could see Judge Dugan saying, look, I don't want disruption to the eight or nine other cases and all the people who are here. Go out the side door so that you don't disrupt my courtroom. Right. Uh and uh so there's a lot of plausible reasons why she would put out the side door. She knows darn well it goes to the public hallway. There's no escape. So uh anyway, here's what the federal government is not thinking about and doesn't care about. Judge Dugan, let's assume she's innocent for a second. She's off all her cases. She's completely paid by the state. This could be for two years during the whole trial and appeal process. She will be fully paid by the state. The state has to hire another judge or find another judge to take her docket. Anything in her docket where she is, you know, working up a decision or things like that has to start over again. All right? Justice delayed, justice denied, all because the federal government wanted a photo op of a judge in handcuffs to discourage other judges all over the country. And uh it's a thing that things that nobody thinks about, certainly not the federal government, they don't care. They don't care that the state now has a burden in addition to uh whatever Judge Dugan did. And if she's innocent, what what difference does it make? And the other thing is, as John knows and your read your viewers should know, in white-collar uh crime crime, in white-collar crime charges, the disposition is important, of course, but the harm is in the charge. The harm is in the charge. Someone's who has a normal life, no convictions, right? She's 66 years old, her reputation in her life is ruined. She's getting uh crank uh calls, emails, whatever, her family was threatened, and also that Cash Patel could make a point. This is wrong. And let me further say, when I was in A USA years ago, we used to think about the consequences of actually serving process on people who have never been convicted and who might be older or infirm. Because we had an incident where we served, not me, but another guy served a search warrant on a businessman in Green Bay who had never been in trouble with the law, and they served the search warrant and he dropped dead on the spot. That's a risk with a 66-year-old woman. Do you think they actually looked into her health history? No. Do you think they actually gave a damn? Maybe they would have liked her to drop dead on the spot. Then they don't have to prove anything. This is what's so insidious about this to me.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Well, I do want to go into this and what you were going to be talking about before I interrupted earlier, but I do want to get into the personalities more. What do you know, for instance, about Judge Dugan that would have made her have the urine and vinegar to be willing to do what she did?

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Well, uh, Judge Dugan comes from the uh poverty side of law, legal aid lawyer, uh, committed to she actually gives lectures on the constitution. She's taught at Marquette Law School on that. She uh uh was the the uh the advocate for the downtrodden and before she became a judge. Um as a judge, she was known to be uh flinty and um by the book, but with some compassion. Um uh she was not the maybe she was uh sort of the woke model they're going after. I don't know, because she came from uh not the prosecutor side, as John knows, almost all judges were once uh DAs. Uh many of them have never been off the public fist, they go DA to judge. And now you're gonna bring some major case that involves important things in front of this person who has no experience and doesn't know anything, has never had to meet a payroll. Uh but uh that's a different, you know, rap I have about uh our system. But Judge Dugan came uh you know from more the woke side of things to use Trump's term, and uh so she's an ideal kind of target for uh for this, I think.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Okay, now uh if other judges are thinking of standing up against the ICE agents and don't want the predicament of Judge Dugan, do you think there's a solution for them uh until their own courthouses make policies that limit where ICE agents can go and other law enforcement agents and uh where people can bring weapons?

SPEAKER_02 30:08

I think the judges should state clearly, maybe even at in their opening remarks at every open court hearing, that this is that they will enforce decorum, they will not allow disruption, and that includes moving about, that includes uh conversations, that includes interaction with other members of the public, which in this case the undercover agents were just other members of the public, uh, and that any of that has to go on outside of her courtroom and preferably outside of the courthouse. And there's good reason for that. I mean, this is a courthouse that has divorce cases, it has a past history of people being violent in their uh and in their public spaces. And uh so you if you if you organize your courtroom and you make sure there's no disruption in it, that means there's no disruption by somebody being arrested or this or that. Uh uh and the other thing would be to have a policy, and I'm not sure if they do, they were working on one, I'm not sure what it is, right? Uh as to what to do in the public spaces. And I I also am concerned about this difference between uh a warrant issued by a judge and a warrant issued by a bureaucrat. Right. That's that one is a tough one for me. There's a there's a line of authority, at least somewhere that I've heard of that um you don't have to comply with an administrative warrant. Let them go back and get a real one if they want it.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Right. And there's also a legitimate judicial function to not want litigants and witnesses who uh witness a uh an arrest anywhere in the courthouse, including the hallway, to want to leave. This is part of separation of powers and federalism right here. I agree with that. I I do. Okay, so Monica Isham, she's a judge in the same courthouse who last I saw about two weeks ago said she wasn't going to take uh cases until things change with uh uh something to do with these arrests in the courthouse. I might understand you know little or nothing about her. I don't know anything about that.

SPEAKER_02 32:12

I I think that's I mean, uh an understandable first reaction, but upon reflection, uh being a judge is not an easy job and it's not for everybody. So you're gonna have to tough it out sometimes. Make the rules, make sure it's plain that you're you will tolerate no disruption in your courtroom, and that you will be hostile to those who try to do that no matter where they come from. And and Sally Forth, carry on.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Am I reading correctly in the news or incorrectly uh between the lines that perhaps there was one or more uh there were one or more uh courtroom security personnel or courthouse security personnel that were siding more with the uh the federal agents than uh with Judge Dugan with this whole situation?

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Yeah, the courthouse security is some of it is hired, you know, basically rent a cops uh for money reasons, and then it's supposedly supervised by the sheriffs, the county sheriffs. The county sheriffs uh are very much aligned with the ICE and uh uh uh homeland security enforcement people. Uh and the line people who are like doing the security and the security checksums, they're clueless. I mean, they're just doing a dumb $20 an hour job. Okay. So uh I think that you're right that law enforcement does coalesce more or less behind these arrests. I don't think they would have supported this one. I mean, if you just look at it from a police perspective, and uh in my volunteer life, I have the uh president of a suburbs police commission. I've been doing this for 20 or 30 years. Uh, good police practice would be to have arrested that guy when he came through security.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 34:01

If that's what they were there for, that's what they should have done.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Okay, so you're talking about Ruiz's lawyer being at the courthouse today. So you seem to think that he was subpoenaed to testify. Do you know anything about him and whether he would uh go ahead and say first of all I think it's the way I'm testifying?

SPEAKER_02 34:19

I think it's a she. Uh she, okay. I don't know anything about her. Uh my guess is uh that she either will or won't say something that's incriminatory about the judge. I I just don't know. I do know that the lawyers, well, let me back up a second. Um, federal grand jury is not people don't know a lot about federal grand juries, and for the most part, they are useless. Uh, but they are occasionally, very occasionally, astute enough to have read the papers or heard the controversy, pay attention to a case like this, whereas the other stuff is just some FBI agent reading whatever he wants to read, and then they say, Yeah, fine, indict him. Uh, there are no defense lawyers in a grand jury, there are no required witnesses for the defense in a grand jury, the proceedings are secret. The people who are on a grand jury typically serve for about a year or a year and a half. There's somewhere between 16 and 23 of them, 12 have to vote to indict. Occasionally, I've seen it once, uh, they find a presentation so outrageous that they just say no. It's called a no-bill. In most cases of no-bills, it's the prosecutors who are saying no-bill, because they're getting pressure from agents to do something they don't want to do. And the example of that I have from the 70s is when there were uh pornography magazine prosecutions. Remember back in the day? I know it's crazy. Back in the day. Back in the day, and and uh nobody wanted to do those. It was a Justice Department uh uh priority at that time. So they would gather together the magazines and go into the grand jury and say, Here, you can indict these guys for this, don't do it, you know, or you know, basically indicate that uh this was not something that they were pushing. And the grand jury with no bill, they'd go to the judge and say it was no bill, they'd go to the agent and say, Hey, sorry, that's what grand jurors are for. I saw that happen once. And I've been around a long time and I have never seen it happen since then. But I held out hope that at least if they can't prove directly that Judge Dugan said something to this lawyer to get the heck out of here to avoid arrest, that maybe these the grand jury would go, nope, not enough here. But you know, that's a bit naive on my part, I think.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Okay, so you say you know the players. So who are the players, you know, Aaron? This isn't for gossipy reasons, this is for uh to have more insight uh into what I consider a whole outright, wholly outrageous situation. You know, among the the the magistrate, whatever assigned magistrate judge there is, U.S. district court judge, uh the federal prosecutors, anyone else involved here as it relates to that case.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

Let's start with I've already uh pretty much uh given my opinion of the government side of this. Uh, but on the defense side, uh Steve Biskup is the chief defense lawyer, he's a friend of mine, and uh he was the U.S. attorney here for a number of years under Republican administration. Uh Steve is a fine lawyer. He tells me all the time I'm the only one who ever beat him in a trial. But uh, and it was a sensational long six-week trial, whatever, a lot, a lot of years ago. But uh, we've been friends ever since, and he's really good. He's really good. He is backed up. Now he comes out of the Republican world, the what I guess the Trump people would say the Rhino world, because he's not a Trumper. And he has uh engaged, or uh Paul Clement engaged himself in this. Uh, Paul is uh, I think an Alito clerk from a long time ago and one of the smartest men in America. He's argued 30 or 40 in Supreme Court cases. I worked with him on a case a while ago, and he's he's amazing. He's definitely Republican, which is fine. Uh, and he is outraged by all this, and he is adding his constitutional heft to this. I believe they're going to challenge the um 1505 statute as being vague, which, as you know, John, that's kind of the the challenge these days to relook at federal crimes and uh find them to be vague, and they're getting some traction in the Supreme Court about that. Uh, because you you you have to know what you're going to be charged with. A criminal statute has to be written so you know if you do something wrong, it's wrong. Uh, and when you have words like corruptly, what does that mean when you when it when you when you have uh fuzzy language, it's not giving enough notice to a potential defendant that they may have or have committed a crime. So I think that that's one of the challenges they're gonna do. Um the others would be basically factual, okay? Uh is there enough uh facts here to to constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt? And if the matter goes to trial, um that will be the pitch. It would be very be to me, and I'm not I don't have any knowledge of this, but the the case will get tried in the in the government side with lots of cross-examination, lots of motions and the like. And then, depending on uh which judge and how they do it, there would be a motion for a directed uh verdict right at the end of the, you know, a motion that there's not enough evidence to support going to the jury after the government's presentation. And uh that might be granted. Now, I can tell you about the federal judges here, they are to a to most degrees excellent. There, there's only four of them. And they are, when I say excellent, I mean they are fair, and uh at least a couple of them come out of uh uh uh let's just say a more of a constitutional bias. That is, they understand what reasonable doubt is, they understand things. Uh they're not good on violent crime, but what judge is good on violent crime, right, John? So uh uh we have uh Lynn Edelman, who's in mid-80s and uh is not gonna go senior status, and he is a stickler, and he lets you try your case, but he will interject and make sure it's done right. We have uh Joe Stadmiller, who's also in his 80s and is uh still active. Uh he is a Republican appointee from long ago, but he's definitely a constitutionalist. Um, and he would he would the prosecutor, the U.S. Attorney's Office has traditionally hated him because he'd made them work, okay, to actually do their job. Uh and then uh beyond that, uh there are two newer judges, both uh Judge Pepper, I think he's chief judge. I say newer, she's only about six, seven years, and uh she's uh comes out of a Democratic appointment. And then the the last judge uh is uh newer, uh comes from the Republican side, very smart guy, his background is bankruptcy. Um, I think the government would be hoping that they'd get him. Um, but it's it really is random, block of the draw, uh, as to which judge uh will get this uh when she's indicted.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

Okay, so from the prosecution side, you mentioned a local federal prosecutor, I guess who who who signed off on this whole thing, but how many federal prosecutors are involved? And then there's this bigger uh question, Steve. It's so common for people who graduate from the most prestigious law schools to do the stepping stone approach if they want to do litigation, to become uh federal court clerks, and then assistant United States attorneys or to have another plumb job in the uh uh in the Justice Department. Uh are you hearing anything uh directly or indirectly about some people who are saying, uh, no way, I'm I'm just not gonna put myself in a position of joining a Justice Department uh that is uh making this kind of a request. I mean, we're already seeing it with uh some of the big law firms. The big law firms who made the mistake of uh kowtowing to the Trump administration were probably beating their heads against the wall with how Perkins Coey is doing so well right now with injunctive action. And, you know, the the cream of the crop of the lawyers, at least on the resume, they're able to go elsewhere.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Yeah, yeah. And Sussman Godfrey is a firm I know well. They're they're they're killing it. They're great. Uh well, look, um, let's start with the people inside the office. When uh the Justice Department gave everybody the right to leave with nine months pay, there were, I want to say, four or five who left with nine months pay. Okay. They didn't want, they knew what was coming, and they didn't want to be in that justice department. The ones who stay are people who need a job or think they can maybe change things and the like. Uh, and then this happens, and it's just clear, these are the two chief of the criminal division people who signed off on this. They are not likable, and they have never done anything else. They've been prosecutors their whole career, they have no perspective, uh, and they're willing to do anything. Uh, I would, I'm speculating, but I think uh the one of them, the one that I'm not real fond of, is looking to maybe get appointed the U.S. attorney. That's not been happened, that hasn't happened here yet. And what better way than to throw a bone, not just a bone, a stake, to uh to Trump's uh ideal here uh in this case. Uh so I uh I uh I I I it's an office when I was there, I loved it. I love the people, all the people I was there with who are still around practicing law are my friends, and it's just not that way anymore. Um it's It's uh uh federal prosecutors have become professionalized, which was a theme of Reagan's administration. And I don't agree with that. I think people should go in, get your training, get out. So you want to go there, you know. Uh I think the Canadian system is better. They take the third year of law school and they make you prosecute and defend, right? And then you can make a decision about what's right and wrong. You see both sides. Interesting. Uh but here people go be prosecutors, and that's their career, and then they want to be a judge. I mean, that's kind of the way it's been going.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

So when you were at the office, was that during the Ford and or Carter administrations?

SPEAKER_02 44:38

It was uh Ford and then Carter, yeah. Uh and I was appointed by a Republican Gerald Ford. Uh, but it didn't matter. The office was full. I mean, imagine a 26-year-old with the basically the powers that are given to uh assisted U.S. attorneys. We used to say we did more justice in a week than a judge could do in four months by what we charged or not charged, right? Uh I would I would often get a case from an agent and say, Are you kidding? Go back and do some work. And nowadays the agents are drafting the indictments and the assistant U.S. attorneys are just signing them. Uh, it's the tail's wagging the dog.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Okay. Well, Steve, I I think we've covered uh this particular case, unless you have any other ideas. But I do want to know if you have any ideas beyond what I said about uh emboldening or uh persuading state-level judges uh to put limits on activities of federal agents. So these kind of arrests and prosecutions like the one with Judge Dugan aren't happening at all.

SPEAKER_02 45:46

Yeah, I would say that uh state courthouses, state judges need to get together and number one, make sure that their rules map what the federal court in their district does. Before federal agents come storming into their courtroom, they should be uh bound by the same rules they would have in the federal courthouse, and they are different. Okay, they are much more restrictive. Second, I would say to state judges, uh, have a policy, post it. Say there will be arrests in this courthouse only in certain public spaces and only if there is a probable cause warrant for the arrest or an exigent, you know, somebody pulls out a gun, you arrest them, right? Um uh an exigent circumstance, neither of which this was. And uh uh by the way, this arrest of Judge Dugan and the Purp Walk is the first time I've seen that in an in a uh over 30-year-old, unpreviously convicted person with roots in the community in a job. They always get a summons, come and see you at such and so a time and such and so a place. Going charging by complaint is never done in this district, ever, except in an exigent circumstance where there's someone has no home and they're about to flee. Okay. Uh, that was not the case here. So this was all hurry up, uh and and you know, get the get the photo opportunity and the press release opportunity, and then we kind of don't care what happens next.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

Okay, so what I want to move on to the name of the show is Beat the Prosecution. And and I'm embarrassed that for a brief moment I forgot your your first name. I like your last name so much, it was easy. No offense to you, but have you ever told people, hey, maybe it's easy to remember your last name for those people who used to watch Bewitched Show and Gladys Kravitz?

SPEAKER_02 47:32

Yeah, yeah, Gladys Kravitz and Lenny Kravitz. They're yeah, and and I think uh in the old country, our our last name a hundred years ago was Kravitzky. So, you know, somebody shortened it, uh not me. But uh the uh yeah, I think the um well, the quite if the question is well, what was the question? Give it to me again.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

I well, I didn't do what I did at the beginning of the show, and of course I didn't have to ask you to remind me of your first name just by looking at the bottom left corner of Zoom. I'm not I'm such a Zoom Luddite, there's your name, but I didn't do what I usually do, which is to give you an opportunity at this point. I usually do it earlier, to give your URL uh and and tell some more about the the work you do, and then we can talk about your your aggravated approach to uh defense or whatever you call it.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

So thank you, John. I appreciate that. Uh uh my email is Kravit at Kravitlaw.com. So I always say if you can spell my name, you can probably get the email. Uh and our firm Kravit Hubble and Krofchak, good Polish name for Milwaukee at the end there. Um uh we do nothing but we're a boutique litigation firm, but not personal injury. So we we do fraud and you know, uh state contests and second generation businesses where the children all hate each other and think they're entitled. Those those kinds of cases. Um, and also white-collar uh criminal defense, and we do some class action cases. And we had a giant fraud case a couple years ago where five school districts here were sold uh a security involving a hundred million dollars, and uh it was uh fraudulently representative based. And the tranche that they purchased went to zero. Now you're talking about five public school districts with what they invested $100 million became zero.

unknown 49:22

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 49:23

And in six years of litigation, we recovered uh $217.5 million for these school districts. Uh at the time, the second largest uh settlement in the history of the state, the first one being tobacco a number of years ago. So it uh we've we've done really well pushing very hard in the right spots. Uh and uh that's what we do all day, every day. That's why I'm still in this. I feel justice strongly. It's the reason I went into law, and it's the way reason I'm still in it now.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

How are you able to have practiced uh law for 50 years if you're only 39 years old?

SPEAKER_02 50:02

Ah, you're the best, John. You can have me anytime.

SPEAKER_01 50:05

Uh you know, let's talk about how to beat the prosecution. And it it do you call it aggravated defense? Aggravated litigation.

SPEAKER_02 50:13

And that's because it's aggravating to the people who are either faced with it or uh stuck with it or have to bring it. And I as I tell people, this is what uh one of life's as I sometimes say when I can't do anything for people that you've just paid tuition in the school of life. And and that's look, you can't be uh in business for years or decades without running into a problem, whether it's of your making or somebody else's. Uh life is not smooth. And in America, I think people are litigious. And it's especially true when we get to recessions or disturbing or troubled times. That's when people commit crimes, that's when litigation becomes an outlet because you can't borrow money to get out of your problem. Uh, or you have borrowed money and they want it back, things like that. So uh it's very unfortunate, but uh we we do better when times are bad uh or disruptive. Uh but either way, there's a constant flow. It's uh the dynamic of human interaction does result in conflict and conflict in America, results in court cases.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

There is a saying, Steve, that there are no secrets to criminal defense, but at the same by the same token, one of my favorite criminal defense law teachers uh said at Macon at the National Criminal Defense College's trial practice institute, no one is to record this session. I only want this information getting out to defense lawyers. Of course, it can leak out. Now, with the knowledge the prosecutors are are listening to, do you have any secrets or near secrets to winning a trial? And how how often for criminal defense? And how often do you go to trial for criminal defense?

SPEAKER_02 51:55

If you're doing it, I I've had these are all major trials. I've had around 20 of them in my career. And you know, you know what it's like. I mean, if you're gonna go over a two-month or three-month trial, that's two or three months before that, that you're just basically totally wrapped up in it, and it's exhausting and it's you know, uh uh it's tough. But you want a good uh working thought. The one that I've always followed uh from a lawyer who I kind of didn't respect because he tried a case where he wasn't paying any attention, um, was from Effley Bailey, where he said, when a lawyer pulls a rabbit out of a hat, it's because he has 99 hats. Uh truer words were never spoken. Uh or uh the uh Texas litigator who uh said uh you don't hire a gunslinger by the bullet, as he said he was not going to be charging hourly fees.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

Right.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

So those are those are two things to think about when you get into this business.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

Do you have any particular uh special mentors for doing criminal defense or doing shawl work in general?

SPEAKER_02 53:08

Uh yeah, uh I was lucky enough to learn my practice in front in front of uh as an AUSA in front of federal judges, uh, who were really, really the former governor of the state was one of them, two former governors of the state at the time. And uh a fellow named Myron Gordon, who was actually sort of responsible for me getting the job. And Myron was a crusty guy who was very, very uh uh arrogance wrong. He was very, very controlling in his courtroom. He once uh looked at a lawyer who said, uh, I'm sorry, Judge, I need an adjournment. I have another trial that day. And then Judge uh Gordon looked at his client and he said, You heard that, right? Right. You'll have enough time to get another lawyer. Uh so you know that's what I mean. When you're trained in that kind of thing, when you file a motion, you have to file a brief. Uh, you do your own appeals to the Seventh Circuit in a small office like this one, where it was small, um, it you learn. And then you do the government civil side as well. And the government has all sorts of civil cases. We used to say if the government could sue its own lawyers for malpractice, we'd all be broke.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

Okay, well, Steve, I told you we'd be here until three o'clock Eastern time, and there's one more minute left. So, what do you want the listeners to hear about Hannah Dugan's case, you or anything else you have not already said?

SPEAKER_02 54:31

I would say that uh let's hopefully let Hannah Dugan's uh arrest and perp walk and the like stand for a proposition that we need to be more vigilant about this government's tactics. We need to watch what they do, we need to document it, and we need to sue to prevent it. And uh that is the lesson here, irrespective of whether she's guilty of anything or not. Uh, I don't think so. I think she can be acquitted on beyond a reasonable doubt. Maybe the grand jury will do it the right thing and not charge her. But I I uh I've been upset. I don't usually speak out about other people's cases, but this one got my goat. It hit me where home is, which is here.

SPEAKER_01 55:16

Steve, I think we're at a moment of truth. I I sometimes wonder, you know, what were people doing to stand up during the McCarthy era? What were people doing to stand up against civil rights violations against uh Jim Crow and uh lynching and all the bigotry? Well, bigotry continues into today. So it continues right into today. Everybody uh don't have your children, grandchildren, anyone else ask you 10 or 20 years from now, what were you doing when all this outrageous thing, all these outrageous things were happening from the government or non-government sectors? And one of the great things about Hannah Dugan having at least one or two uh died in the wall Republicans is therefore it doesn't make it seem like it's some sort of uh partisan democratic approach there.

SPEAKER_02 56:02

I would say that that's true. And this is our time, this is our chance. Uh injustice is one of the best motivators, even for people who aren't uh uh uh buried in injustice all the time, but it's one of the best motivators of human conduct. And uh let's let's rally and and make sure we get back to, as uh one uh John uh uh the senator from uh Arizona, John uh used to say, regular order. Let's get back to some sort of regular John McCain, regular order, and uh do things in the proper procedural way and stop this outrage every day as a new crazy thing, and uh get to good government and get back to what we what's really important, which is your family and your community.

SPEAKER_01 56:56

There you go, Steve Kravit. I really appreciate you joined us. You've heard from Steve Kravit, a lawyer in Milwaukee, talking to us about the Hannah Dugan outrageous prosecution and about beating the prosecution. You can find him in Milwaukee. Just uh Google Stephen Kravit, K-R-A-V-I-T. You see his name on the bottom left of the screen for those of you watching visually. Thank you so much. This is John Katz at Beat the Prosecution. I am a criminal defense and DUI defense lawyer in Fairfax, Northern Virginia. Steve, stand by.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

Thank you for listening to this week's episode from Beat the Prosecution. This is a regular podcast giving people a leg up against police investigations and prosecutions. Nothing discussed on our media sources, such as our podcast or website, is legal advice. John Katz only provides legal advice to current clients or to individuals who have paid for a consultation. We welcome you contacting us via email at info at beatheprosecution.com by calling our office at 703 383 1100 or texting us at 571 406 7268.