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Suppose you're a judge, and you issue a warrant to arrest a murder suspect. Before the police can execute the warrant, he is detained by ICE and set for deportation. Would you consider this a satisfactory outcome?
State and Federal power are concurrent. No one gets to tell the other's LE what to do.
Would it be boneheaded to deport a murderer pre-trial? In most scenarios, yes. Almost every jurisdiction would detain the murderer ONE THEIR OWN DIME IN THEIR OWN FACILITIES, then when the murderer is finally released, they'd notify ICE.
But this is not even closely analogous. This illegal has a pending misdemeanor DV charge. The girlfriend is probably going to ask the prosecution to dismiss the charges soon enough (>50% of these end up this way). Even if she's committed they are in front of this hyper liberal judge who wouldn't imprison a "dreamer" or whatever this fellow is classified is in her mind if she knew ICE was anywhere near his trail. In other words, if ICE doesn't detain him, the most likely outcome is the case is dismissed and he waits out ICE for a while then goes about his illegal immigrant activities until he hits this, or another girlfriend again, repeat ad nauseam.
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Whether I consider it satisfactory or not is hardly the point. There are many legal outcomes that I don't consider satisfactory, none of which I think I can remedy by electing to personally override the federal government's actions.
Maybe the judge thought that was better than ICE personally aiding and abetting the escape of a wife beater.
Given that he still has the option of turning himself in to ICE for that great "escape plan", this seems rather implausible.
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Given how often domestic violence charges result in a metaphorical slap on the wrist, I don't think this really passes the sniff test. Theoretically, these charges could hit a little over two years imprisonment, but in practice the Milwaukee system gives 'nonviolent' domestic abusers (a category that looks to include these charges, because why would words mean things?) a median sentence of 50 days, and a third of those sentenced walk.
So I'm pretty skeptical at the first glance.
At a deeper level, I would be absolutely fascinated by a principle where state judges are allowed to determine what actions of federal law Act In The Interest Of Justice, but I think that's pretty settled.
The part you're forgetting is that doing the 50 days doesn't mean he gets to stay. It's not a choice between 50 days in jail or get deported, it's do the 50 days in jail and then get deported.
After the past head of Catholic Charities shoes him out the back door?
Again, doesn’t pass the sniff test.
EDIT: to be more clear: Dugan had the choice of maybe 50 days in jail, or getting deported, and took this action, which made either less likely. Literally while the victim was waiting in her court.
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In this hypothetical are you a state or federal judge? Demanding the feds remand someone they've detained to state custody seems like something you at best could ask nicely for (see the precedent of Grant v. Lee on the subject). I would generally expect them to agree for major crimes absent other major political concerns. If federal (and assuming Article III), then no. If federal and Article II, then I think it's at least unclear which parts of the executive can order which others around.
I'm talking about state judges, because that's what's at issue here. And yep, ask nicely is what they do, by which I mean put in a formal request. And they generally agree for minor crimes as well as major ones, unless there's some compelling reason to get the guy out of the country ASAP. I remember a DUI case in Washington County, PA where the defense attorney was arguing for a dismissal since the guy was going to be deported and the case was moot. The fairly hardass judge wanted the attorney to request a release from ICE detention because he wanted to keep the guy from driving drunk and could require an interlock device and testing if the guy stayed here until the case was resolved. I don't know how the case ended, but I got the impression that the judge was convinced that they guy would end up killing someone in Mexico if he didn't dry out first.
The judge wanted the case off his call permanently. That is the most likely reason for this attitude.
*Edit
Here is how I imagine the thought process of a tougher on crime in my jurisdiction going:
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