FORT WAYNE – A group of Allen County residents filed a challenge with the Indiana Election Commission against Allen Superior Court Judge Kenneth Scheibenberger’s re-election bid, citing judicial discipline he received in early 2009.

Filed Tuesday, the affidavit has the signatures of 12 “concerned Allen County citizens” who believe Scheibenberger should be taken off the ballot because he does not meet the standards under Indiana law. Most of the 12 are Republicans, active in the local conservative scene.

In January 2009, the Indiana Supreme Court issued a judicial disciplinary action against Scheibenberger. It suspended the judge for three days without pay over comments he made to a defendant’s family in another judge’s courtroom in November 2007 while in his robe, an action the court said was that of a grieving parent.

The high court took action on the complaint filed by the Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications, an arm of the Indiana Supreme Court responsible for investigating complaints against judges throughout Indiana. The Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission investigates and prosecutes claims of misconduct against lawyers licensed in Indiana.

The group of citizens argues that Indiana law governing the selection of Allen County Superior Court judges prohibits people from running for election if they have had any Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission action.

But Scheibenberger argues, and other lawyers believe, the discipline issued in January 2009 does not disqualify the judge from seeking re-election.

“They are confusing the (Supreme Court’s) Disciplinary Commission with the Judicial Qualification Commission,” said Dan Sigler, a former county prosecutor who has handled a number of cases involving Indiana election law and spoke generally about this issue.

“Being disciplined as a judge does not prohibit one from being a judge,” Sigler said. “(The legislature is) saying if you’re disciplined as a lawyer you can’t run as a judge. If the legislature intended that to be the death penalty for sitting judges they would have said it.”

Scheibenberger said that is what his own attorneys have told him.

“The Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission of Indiana is the lawyers’ ethics committee,” said Scheibenberger, a judge since 1991. “It is completely separate and apart from the judicial qualifications commission. That’s the whole basis for this thing. It does not apply to what happened to me.”

Scheibenberger’s 27-year-old son, Samuel Scheibenberger, died in August 2007 from a lethal amount of cocaine. The judge went into Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull’s courtroom to witness the sentencing hearing for Steven Duane Warren.

While Warren was being sentenced for carrying a handgun without a license, Scheibenberger – who believed the man had sold drugs to his son – made obscenity-laced comments to both a deputy prosecutor and then to the man’s family.

It was not Scheibebenberger’s first run-in with judicial discipline. In 2002, he was admonished for taking judicial action in his son’s misdemeanor case.

Scheibenberger said he had heard the challenge was going to happen, and sees it as a smear campaign timed near the anniversary of his son’s death.

State law requires candidate general-election challenges to be filed by Aug. 20.

“I had anticipated it would happen,” he said. “But I had hoped they would at least have talked with some attorneys and get their opinion on whether or not that applied.”

Two of the 12 people listed on the challenge were active supporters of failed Fort Wayne Republican mayoral candidate Matt Kelty, sentenced to a year of probation by Scheibenberger for campaign finance violations. Kelty failed to properly report $158,000 in campaign funds and was indicted on seven felony charges. He pleaded guilty in 2008 to two felony charges of filing fraudulent campaign reports and one misdemeanor charge of false informing, admitting he lied to a grand jury.

Larry Arnold, a Republican precinct committeeman, one of the dozen people on the challenge, said he wants the best for our judges.

“A judge should be totally above reproach,” Arnold said. “The judge has done some things that have been embarrassing, ranting and raving.”

And while he didn’t talk to a lawyer about what the statute requires of candidates, he sees it differently than Scheibenberger does.

“To my eyes it seems pretty clear,” he said.

He said he heard about the petition from some colleagues and signed it in the office of John Popp, who notarized the signatures but is not listed on the petition.

Popp, president and chief executive officer of Aunt Millie’s Bakeries, has endorsed Scheibenberger’s opponent, part-time Allen County Deputy Prosecutor Wendy Davis, a partner at the law firm Beckman Lawson LLP. Popp was also a contributor to Kelty’s mayoral campaign.

Davis is adamant she is running for the position, not against any person or opponent. She said she wants to educate Allen County voters about her and her campaign.

“I feel like I can be a great judge for Allen County,” Davis said. “I really want to make the focus about me and my campaign and not about that. I’m running my own campaign and trying to stay in my own lane.”

rgreen@jg.net