A Massachusetts judge accused of blocking the arrest of an illegal immigrant can face prosecution, a federal appeals court ruled.
Judge Shelley Joseph, who has been collecting her $184,000-a-year salary while on suspension, is accused of aiding a migrant's escape from an ICE agent in her Newton, Massachusetts district courtroom in 2018, the Boston Herald reported.
The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston on Monday rejected an appeal to dismiss the case, saying it was "premature," and denied Joseph's argument that she has "absolute judicial immunity."
The three-judge panel said that absent an explicit statutory or constitutional right to avoid trial, she and her courtroom deputy, Wesley MacGregor, would need to face a jury first.
Court papers say the judge blocked a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent from detaining a man that left through a rear door.
Retired court officer MacGregor is accused of leading Jose Medina-Perez through the courtroom's lockup and exit.
The case is an "apparently unprecedented prosecution" that could "chill other judges from refusing to assist federal officials," U.S. Circuit Judge William Kayatta wrote, The Epoch Times reported.
"Judge Joseph cannot obtain interlocutory review of her judicial immunity defense unless she can show that her claimed right not to be tried is explicitly grounded in a statute or the Constitution," Kayatta wrote.
"We must reject the defendants' request for pretrial review of the denial of their motions to dismiss because their appeals are premature," the court writes in its ruling, the Herald said.
Medina-Perez, from the Dominican Republic, allegedly set free by Joseph, had been deported twice before and wasn't allowed back until 2027, the Herald said.
The appeals court said the migrant was about to be seized by immigration officials when Joseph instructed her court officer to "tell the [ICE] officer to leave."
"The clerk did as instructed, and also told the ICE officer that if released, [the migrant] would exit the courtroom into the courthouse lobby," the court said. But, instead, he reportedly was set free out "a rear sally-port exit."
The case was first brought under then-U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling, an appointee of former President Donald Trump.
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