Lima City Prosecutor Rick Eddy, left, along with his family and campaign treasurer Veronica Conley, middle, completed paperwork Tuesday at the Allen County Board of Elections to submit his candidacy for Lima Municipal Court judge.
Craig Kelly | The Lima News
LIMA — A city prosecutor is hoping to see cases from the other side of the bench.
City of Lima Prosecutor Rick Eddy filed paperwork Tuesday at the Allen County Board of Elections to declare his candidacy for Lima Municipal Court judge, seeking to fill the seat currently held by the retiring Judge David Rodabaugh. Eddy will be seeking to win the Republican nomination for the seat in the May 2023 primary, running against Lima Municipal Court Magistrate John Payne, who announced his candidacy eight days earlier.
Eddy has served in a prosecutorial role for more than 18 years, 14 of those working for the City of Lima. For him, seeking a seat on the bench is the next logical step, both in his desire to grow in his legal career and his hope to serve his community.
“As a lifelong resident of Allen County, it just seemed like a great opportunity to continue being a public servant,” he said.
Eddy began as a prosecutor in Hardin County in 2004, mainly working on juvenile cases ranging from truancy to violent crime and other felonies. He transitioned from there into working for children’s services in Hardin County before coming to work for the City of Lima law department in 2008.
“All my prosecution has been criminal,” he said, “in trying to prove a charge.”
Should he be elected, Eddy hopes to work with the court’s probation department to explore various ways to expand probation services.
“It’s about the punishment fitting the crime,” he said. “Certainly, with a non-violent case, someone who’s never been in trouble, the goal would be probation to try to get them on the right path.”
Eddy also has experience working with Lima’s drug court, a program he would want to see maintained and expanded.
“One of the biggest new things [to prioritize] would be mental health,” he said. “We have a noticeable amount of people charged with a crime that have serious mental health issues. Just this summer, myself, the judges and some of our local service providers started to meet to figure out ways to better address these types of individuals, obviously to keep the community safe, but just as importantly to keep them safe.”
