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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – In Wisconsin, felons cannot hold public office.
After being convicted of a felony last Thursday night, Hannah Dugan should have been removed from her judgeship at the Milwaukee County courthouse the very next day. She is ineligible to sit on the bench.
But we are told that the presiding judge at her trial, Lynn Adelman, hadn’t filed the conviction paperwork with the federal registry. Is it foot-dragging? Or is some clerk in his office already on vacation for the holidays? Adelman is a liberal. He is probably sympathetic to Dugan.
It’s certain that an appeal will be filed. The first step is legal briefs with an appellate court. Then oral arguments. And then, a ruling. If, however unlikely, the jury’s felony conviction is overturned, the prosecution will appeal. The process will take months to play out. Surely Hannah Dugan won’t remain a judge for all that time. She is – today, and throughout the entire appeals process – a convicted felon. That was the unanimous verdict of a jury of her peers; a jury that her own lawyers agreed to as fair and impartial.
You might ask, ‘why does this matter?’ Hannah Dugan was suspended from the bench a few days after criminal charges were filed. She won’t hear any cases. But while she is suspended she still holds the title of “judge”, and she still collects her salary, $116,000 a year, funded by you and me, the taxpayers.
If Hannah Dugan was true to the law, as a judge should be, she would have resigned her office after her conviction. She won’t. She’ll hold on hoping for a quick appeal. If she refuses to step down, the state legislature should begin impeachment proceedings immediately.
The law could not be more clear, Hannah Dugan must go.
Chris Conley
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