On Tuesday, the Indiana Supreme Court dismissed a disciplinary matter against New Haven City Court Judge Geoff Robison.
Filed in September by Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards, the disciplinary charges accused Robison of acting outside the scope of the authority of a city or town court, by handling traffic infractions and offering deferrals.
On Dec. 26, the New Haven City Council voted to disband the New Haven City Court and Robison resigned as its judge.
With that decision, the disciplinary charges were declared moot and dismissed.
Robison, who is not an attorney, agreed to no longer serve as judge. Even though it is barred by state law, if that law were to change, Robison could not take the bench again, according to the conditional agreement as part of the dismissal.
Indiana law once allowed it in city and town courts, but was changed to ban the process.
According to the original disciplinary petition, Robison had processed more than 1,800 infractions and a number of deferrals and juvenile cases since April 2015.
In the absence of Richards or her deputies in his courtroom, Robison used a stamp with Richards’ signature on it to sign court documents.
In May 2017, Richards wrote a letter to the New Haven City Court, demanding Robison stop using her signature stamp for deferalls and reiterating that the Allen County Prosecutor's Office did not authorize the filing or processing of infraction tickets.
She then sent a staff member over to the New Haven City Court building to retrieve the stamp.
But it appears infraction tickets were continued to be processed, with more than 200 infractions were filed in 2017 and 2018, according to the complaint.
He was charged with violating the code of judicial conduct:
By filing the infraction cases without the authorization of the prosecutor.
By permitting juveniles to resolve infraction cases through deferal when it was not permitted by law,.
Allowing individuals to be placed into the infraction deferral program on tickets after April 14, 2015 without the consent of the prosecutor
By dismissing state infractions, the court accepted partial payments with no adjudication.
