LEILA FADEL, HOST:
A Massachusetts judge faces judgment today. Similar to a case in Wisconsin, this judge is accused of helping an undocumented migrant slip out of her courtroom to avoid immigration enforcement agents. Criminal charges have been dropped, but now, NPR's Tovia Smith reports, the judge is fighting to keep her job before a judicial conduct board.
TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: The trial-like hearing of Judge Shelley Joseph starts today with a tour of that courtroom where the undocumented immigrant went out the back door to evade the ICE agents waiting for him at the front door. The immigrant, who'd been deported twice before, was in court on drug charges. In 2019, the judge would end up facing charges of her own - conspiracy and obstruction of justice, federal crimes that could've meant years in prison.
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ANDREW LELLING: From certain quarters, I've heard the occasional gasp of dismay or outrage.
SMITH: Andrew Lelling, then-U.S. attorney during Trump's first administration, acknowledged the seriousness of the charges at the time but denied they were politically motivated. Rather, he said, it was the judge's personal views that led her to violate the law.
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LELLING: We don't get to pick and choose the federal laws that we follow. That is a crime. It makes no difference to me if the federal laws involved are immigration laws, drug laws, tax laws or anything else.
SMITH: Joseph and her attorney declined to comment, but she has denied any wrongdoing, insisting she knew nothing about any plan to evade the ICE agents. In legal filings, she says she was wrongly accused by her alleged coconspirator so he could get an immunity deal for himself. But Shelley's big break came when the Biden administration dropped the charges and let the matter be settled instead by Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct. Geraldine Hines, a former state Supreme Court Justice, says the commission, not the court, is the appropriate place to handle a case like this.
GERALDINE HINES: We don't stand over judges and question them about, why did you decide this? We don't do that.
SMITH: This case is not about a judge obstructing ICE, Hines says. It's about ICE undermining what is supposed to be an independent state judiciary.
HINES: That's the authority that we give them. You know, judges temper justice with mercy. And you have to give them space to make those kind of hard decisions.
SMITH: The commission's proceedings will unfold like a trial, with testimony and cross-examination that could go on for a week or so.
Tovia Smith, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF PALE WHITE MOON'S "HEIRLOOMS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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