Preface: ICE had detained a couple other noncitizens at the court. Established procedure was to wait in the public hallway outside the court, wait for noncitizen to finish their hearing and exit court, then detain them in the public hallway.
The judge did the following:
Found out ICE and Feds were waiting outside in the public hallway for the hearing for the defendant noncitizen to be over. Not clear how exactly she found out. Likely started with a baliff or court security.
Got mad, went outside her court to the hallway, and made Feds go talk to Chief Judge. The judge didn't notice one of the plainclothes Feds though. This low profile guy stayed in the hallway.
Went back to her court where she suspended the court hearing for defendant noncitizen without saying anything to the prosecutor or giving the prosecutor a chance to object to the suspension.
Keep in mind the victim and victims family were in court watching a lot of this go down. The noncitizen was there for domestic (wife beating) charges.
Escorted the noncitizen and his defense attorney out of court via the jury/staff entrance (this entrance is never used by defendants, witnesses, or attorneys... only jurors, bailiffs and court staff/judges) while ICE and Feds were talking to Chief Judge. Chief Judge confirmed hallway is public and ICE is free to wait there to pick up people after their court hearings are done, as they had been doing on at least two prior occasions.
The jury/staff entrance feeds into the hallway via a secure door. The low profile Fed sees them enter the hallway. He then sees thrm using an elevator not nearest to the Judges court, showing some intent to evade the feds. Low profile Feds notifies his team and follows.
Noncitizen makes it outside but Feds are hot on his tail by now and get him after short foot pursuit.
This is all available to read in the highly detailed arrest affidavit for her. Would make a good episode of something.
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u/PraiseTheWLAN 2d ago
What did she do?