Although a strong past supporter, Gov. Maura Healey will not be among those testifying on behalf of District Court Judge Shelley Joseph on Monday.

That is the day Joseph will be before a hearing of the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct. She is on her own.

The hearing is over Joseph’s “willful judicial misconduct” in allowing a wanted illegal immigrant to escape out the back of the Newton District Court in 2018 while ICE agents waited out front to scoop him up.

Joseph was indicted in 2019 on federal charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice by then U.S Attorney Andrew Lelling, a Donald Trump appointee.

The charges were later dropped after Joe Biden defeated Trump in 2020 and took over the U.S. Justice Department.

Joseph, who had been suspended, was returned to the bench by the state Supreme Judicial Court.

The case was a forerunner of the case against Milwaukee Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan, a Democrat like Joseph, who also allowed a fugitive illegal immigrant to sneak out of the back door of the courthouse to evade waiting ICE agents.

Unlike Joseph, who walked under Joe Biden, Dugan, under the Trump administration, is being prosecuted and if convicted faces six years in prison

While free of criminal charges, the Joseph case was turned over to the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct, which investigates complaints of judicial misconduct.

Joseph was appointed to the bench by then-Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican.

However, upon the outbreak of news about Joseph’s backdoor justice, Baker said he found the situation “extremely troubling.”

“Judges are not supposed to be in the business of obstructing Justice,”  he said, adding that Joseph should not have been allowed to hear criminal cases until the situation was resolved.

It is probably politically wise for Healey to stay away from the hearing during ICE’s roundups of hundreds of violent illegal immigrants in Massachusetts under her nose.

But her absence is in sharp contrast to the outspoken support she and other leading Democrats, like Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, showed toward Joseph when the federal charges were first filed.

Back then, when Healey was attorney general — and the state’s “chief law enforcement officer” — she called the Joseph indictment “a radical and politically motivated attack on our state and the independence of our courts.”

That was strong stuff but apparently not strong enough to convey in person to the judicial commission, which is made up by three of her appointees, three by the Supreme Judicial Court and three by the Superior Court.

Back when Healey was attorney general, illegal immigration in Massachusetts, a magnet state with generous social welfare benefits, was still a trickle and easy to support compared to the deluge it became under Biden’s open borders policy.

Joseph could still walk, of course, as she did when the federal indictments were tossed under Biden.

While the nine-member judicial commission may make recommendations to the Supreme Judicial Court about reprimanding or disciplining Joseph, it cannot remove her from the bench.

While the SJC can prohibit Joseph from sitting on the bench or even disbar her, it cannot remove her, though she could resign.

That power rests with the governor and the eight-member Governor’s Council, all Democrats. The council, which has approval power over gubernatorial judicial nominations, can remove a judge from the bench.

But it hardly ever happens, although it could.

The last (and only) time it did happen in the modern era was in 1973 — fifty-two years ago. That was when the council, after a series of dramatic hearings, voted to remove controversial Dorchester District Court Judge Jerome Troy from the bench.

The once politically connected judge had been accused of, among other things, questionable political and business dealings while on the bench, so the council threw him out on his ear.

And there was not an illegal immigrant in sight.

Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com