Massachusetts's highest court issued only a public reprimand against a district court judge who ordered a courtroom recorder turned off while an immigrant slipped out a courthouse back door to evade federal immigration agents, a penalty critics say barely qualifies as accountability.
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts on Thursday formally reprimanded Judge Shelley Joseph for her role in a 2018 incident in which an immigrant facing drug possession charges left a courthouse through a rear exit while an ICE detainer was pending. Joseph, a district court judge, was accused of colluding with the immigrant's attorney and an unnamed court officer to make the escape possible, and of instructing a clerk to shut off the courtroom's audio recording system while it was arranged.
The court's ruling found that Joseph "created an appearance of impropriety in violation of her duties," citing her statements during a conversation about the immigrant's custody and her decision to kill the recording. The Commission on Judicial Conduct went further, concluding that Joseph "engaged in willful judicial misconduct that brought the judicial office into disrepute, as well as conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice and unbecoming a judicial officer." A public reprimand, not removal from the bench, was the result.
The timeline tells the story of how slowly the system moves when the accused wears a robe. The incident took place in 2018. Joseph was federally indicted in April 2019 and charged alongside a court officer with obstruction of justice. She was suspended from judicial duties after the indictment.
Then, in 2022, federal prosecutors dropped the charges, after Joseph agreed to refer herself to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct. That referral led to a hearing last year, where her attorney, Elizabeth Mulvey, argued the case had been distorted over time and that Joseph had been unfairly vilified.
Mulvey contended that the public had come to believe her client "let an illegal immigrant out of the door," and that people were giving the impression "dozens of people" had seen Joseph "get off the bench, escort the defendant to the door, give him a hug and wish him Godspeed." Mulvey characterized that version as exaggerated.
But what is not in dispute, because the state's own highest court found it, is that Joseph ordered the recording system turned off and proposed detaining the immigrant overnight in state custody, conduct the court itself called improper. The hearing officer for the Commission on Judicial Conduct recommended the reprimand. The Supreme Judicial Court agreed, the New York Post reported.
Joseph was suspended from the bench for more than three years after her indictment. In December, she was assigned to administrative duties at Boston Municipal Court. She will now resume full judicial responsibilities there.
Mulvey acknowledged Thursday that the ordeal had been an "incredibly long and difficult eight years for Judge Joseph." In a statement, she framed the outcome as vindication:
"We are grateful to the hearing officer who undertook this monumental task and pleased that his efforts have shown that this was a baseless federal prosecution from the beginning and solely the work of the defense lawyer involved. Judge Joseph is thankful for everyone who stood by her and looks forward to rejoining her colleagues."
A baseless prosecution, Mulvey called it. The state's highest court called it judicial misconduct. Both statements are now part of the record.
Joseph's case is not isolated. In Wisconsin, former Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was convicted in December of felony obstruction after she escorted a man and his lawyer out of her courtroom through a jury door when she learned immigration authorities were seeking his arrest. Dugan held her judgeship for nine years before resigning in January amid threats of impeachment, AP News reported.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman fined Dugan $5,000 in July but spared her prison time, describing the case as "a situation where an otherwise good person, upset by immigration policies in this country, made a bad decision in the moment."
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is running for Wisconsin governor, urged authorities to "lock her up." Dugan, for her part, wrote in her resignation letter that her prosecution threatened "the independence of our judiciary."
Both cases sit at the intersection of local courts and federal immigration enforcement, a fault line that has widened as the Trump administration presses its immigration crackdown. In each instance, a sitting judge took active steps to help a person avoid ICE custody. In each instance, the legal system treated the judge with a degree of leniency that an ordinary citizen charged with obstruction would be unlikely to receive.
Joseph ordered a public recording device turned off in a courtroom, a space that belongs to the people, not to the judge. She proposed a custody arrangement that would have kept an immigrant out of federal hands. The man walked out a back door. And after eight years, a federal indictment, a suspension, and a misconduct finding, she returns to the bench with nothing more than a written scolding.
Dugan got a felony conviction, a $5,000 fine, and no jail time. Joseph got a reprimand and her job back.
The Commission on Judicial Conduct's own language, "willful judicial misconduct" that "brought the judicial office into disrepute", describes conduct that most Americans would expect to end a career on the bench. Instead, it earned a footnote. Joseph will hear cases again. The courtroom recorder, presumably, will stay on this time.
When judges who break the rules face lighter consequences than the people who appear before them, the bench stops being a symbol of equal justice and starts looking like a protected class.
