This almost sounds like something out of the movies. An illegal immigrant was allowed to attempt to escape from federal immigration authorities with the help of the judge who heard his case on the charge of driving while intoxicated. It’s almost as though an attempt was being made to see how many different infractions could be committed in this one instance.
A young man’s daring escape from capture by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, apparently with the assistance of a local judicial referee, has shocked and divided the Portland legal community.
Multnomah County court referee Monica Herranz is under internal review and the target of complaints from a federal prosecutor after allegedly helping the undocumented immigrant elude ICE last month by exiting the courtroom through an employee door.
Ms. Herranz must feel pretty strongly about the alleged rights of illegals for her to risk her job by committing such an offense.
The getaway didn’t ultimately keep the man from being snared by immigration officials after pleading guilty to a DUII. But it demonstrates how everyday court proceedings have mutated, and how tensions have grown within the criminal justice system, as ICE steps up deportations under President Donald Trump.
“Our job is to run a courthouse,” says Multnomah County Circuit Presiding Judge Nan Waller. “It’s a difficult position to be in.”
It’s not entirely obvious what it is about running a courthouse that puts the judge in a “difficult position.” The law should be fairly obvious to the judge. So where’s the problem?
Here’s a summary of the story:
None of the parties contacted by WW will say exactly what happened next. But multiple sources confirm the outlines: At least one defendant in the courtroom that day avoided federal immigration agents by leaving through an entrance usually reserved for court employees.
On the bench in the courtroom that day was Monica Herranz, who is also on the board of directors of the Oregon Hispanic Bar Association. Herranz is what’s known as a court referee: essentially a contract judge who handles lower-level criminal, civil and family court cases.
Herranz declined to speak to WW.
The resolution of this seems like a miscarriage of justice:
“I was troubled because, on the face of it, what I heard sounded like potential federal criminal law violations and/or ethical violations,” Williams [U.S. Attorney for Oregon] says. “Generally, we’re talking about obstruction of justice.”
Williams, ICE and the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility in Washington, D.C., all ultimately agreed not to pursue a criminal investigation or a bar complaint against Herranz or anyone else who may have been involved.
Instead, they decided to talk it out, most recently at a lunch meeting Feb. 22 with Multnomah County judges, including Waller, and with Portland-area ICE administrator Elizabeth Godfrey.
So an obstruction of justice case was resolved over lunch. That should give everyone confidence in our legal process.
What happened to Salazar?
As for Pacheco Salazar, ICE arrested him two weeks later at a follow-up hearing, Schlosser says. Agents saw them leaving the courtroom together and turned to follow. “They followed us down the street a little bit, and then stopped and picked him up,” Schlosser says. His whereabouts are unknown.
And that is how justice is dispensed in Oregon.
Source: Willamette Week
But the $#%&!@*jail with the illegal sonbitch
These liberal judges should be disrobed and horse whipped. Obama too.
Typical of Portland, Oregon government. We recently had two different pedophiles for mayor, one is still hanging around, they’re immune from the law. NOTHING will happen too this Judge.
To this judge, not too.
She should not only be removed from duty, but prosecuted as well.
Good bye
Racist fucks you probably don’t know the facts
JUDGE BROCK THE LAW SHE MUST BE DISBARED AND FACE JAIL TIME
Hope she goes to jail for this oh wait two f in laws right one for them one for us why should we obey the laws when the government’s don’t .Can anyone answer that one? Or do you all feel like me