By Sheila McLaughlin
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Fedders

LEBANON - He's cleaned out his desk and put in his pension papers.

But even though Judge P. Daniel Fedders officially retires at midnight after nearly three decades on the Warren County Common Pleas bench, he won't be gone long.

Fedders, 66, of Franklin, returns to the courthouse in May as a second magistrate to help ease the burgeoning caseload here until legislators add a third common pleas judge in January 2005.

State Rep. Tom Raga, R-Deerfield Township, sponsored a bill this week that would create a new general division judgeship in response to a 65 percent increase in civil and criminal cases since 1992.

Criminal cases alone have jumped 46 percent to about 800 cases in the last four years. Warren is Ohio's second-fastest-growing county.

Ohio Supreme Court officials said they expect the legislation to pass. An election would be held in November 2004.

"With the growth in Warren County, it looks pretty positive," said Doug Stephens, director of judicial and court services.

Fedders said he will work on civil cases so that judges Neal Bronson and James Flannery can spend more time on criminal cases. Flannery, who has been the county's domestic relations judge for about 17 years, officially takes over Fedders' general division seat on Sunday. Gov. Bob Taft is expected to make an appointment to the domestic relations bench to replace Flannery within weeks.

"It's expected that if I came back and worked a month or so at a time, I can absorb enough of the civil caseload that Judge Bronson and Judge Flannery could devote considerably more time to the criminal docket," Fedders said. "We have a commitment to move the criminal cases first."

In an unusual move and because of his experience, Fedders will preside over jury trials, while most magistrates handle only matters that don't require trials.

Attorney Rupert Ruppert, head of the Warren County Bar Association, doubts there will be many objections from his peers about trying their cases before Fedders.

"You know what to expect when you go into Judge Fedders' court," Ruppert said.

"From a legal standpoint, he understands the issues and does the work necessary to really examine the cases and render the decision based on the law."

E-mail smclaughlin@enquirer.com