A year after she was forced to resign from the Drug Court she helped create, Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Stacy Cook is again under scrutiny by her fellow judges for her alleged mistreatment of court employees and the demands she makes on them.

An investigation conducted by retired Judge Peter Handwork at the behest of the common pleas judges found that Judge Cook's practice of closely monitoring criminal defendants on community control requires a disproportionate amount of the probation department's resources.

“This additional work plus the stress placed upon individual officers because of these demands has clearly interfered with the ability of the probation department to render services to all judges uniformly,” Judge Handwork wrote in his 10-page report.

He said some probation officers told him the judge makes them feel like they don't know what they're doing and frequently overrides their recommendations for defendants who violate their probation.

“It is clear that Judge Cook is a judge who cares deeply about a particular segment of the community. Her passion for the mentally ill, drug addicted individuals involved with the criminal justice system is to be applauded,” Judge Handwork wrote. “... [But] her inability to deal effectively with people seems to get in the way of her good intentions. It is clear she is perceived by many employees who work for the court as demanding, controlling, and possessed of a personality that demands things be done her way and her way only.”

Judge Cook, who is running May 8 for a third term, said she knows she does things differently than the other judges, and she knows that means more work for her staff and the probation department. She said the changing population requires it.

“We have people overdosing and dying daily,” Judge Cook said. “Many of these people are parents. They are employees in the community. They are our citizens.”

She said she is “hands on.” She said she wants to be “kept up to speed” with how high-risk defendants are doing so that the court can intervene before they overdose, commit new crimes, or lose their jobs or homes.

“It is my belief that when a person starts to fall off in their sobriety or mental health stability, they start to show warning signs, and by the patterns I observe this would allow us to intervene and possibly stop the relapse before it happens or catch the relapse quickly,” she said.

Still, her hands-on approach comes at a cost.

According to Judge Handwork's report, Judge Cook ordered 270 review reports for defendants on community control last year. The nine other judges ordered a total of 60 during the same time period.

In 2017, the 10 judges requested a total of 2,056 reports from the probation department, excluding pre-sentence reports. Of those, Judge Cook requested 596, or 29 percent, of them.

One probation officer reported spending up to 50 percent of his time on requests from Judge Cook.

Judge Handwork made no recommendations, but left it to the judges to determine whether Judge Cook had violated the Code of Judicial Conduct, which requires in part that judges “cooperate with other judges and court officials in the administration of court business.”

Administrative Judge Gene Zmuda said the judges met for five hours Monday and Thursday to discuss how to handle the findings reported by Judge Handwork. He said they have not completed their work so it was not appropriate for him to comment.

He said he asked Judge Handwork to conduct the investigation because of his 30-plus years as a judge.

“He's well-respected,” Judge Zmuda said. “He understands our court as a former Common Pleas judge, but because he was an appellate judge as long as he was, he doesn't know the individuals personally and therefore provided some objectivity.”

The judges said it’s their duty to look into complaints they receive from employees.

“If there are problems, I think it's incumbent on the court to buffer the employees from this treatment,” Judge James Bates said.

Judge Handwork, who submitted a bill for $2,222.50 for nearly 32 hours of work between Jan. 24 and March 21, said he interviewed nine probation employees, three court security employees, three other current or former employees of the court, and three judges.

Some complained they were mistreated — or witnessed Judge Cook mistreat others — an allegation Judge Cook denies.

“I do not go out of my way to be unkind to people,” she said, referencing one employee's statement to Judge Handwork.

It was her alleged mistreatment of former Drug Court Coordinator Renee Craft that prompted Ms. Craft to abruptly resign last year. In an exit interview, Ms. Craft said she felt she was in a hostile workplace, and that Judge Cook had bullied and intimidated her.

Though the judge denied such conduct, she stepped down from her Drug Court duties after being confronted by the other judges.

Joanne Horen, who is running against Judge Cook in the Democratic primary, said that as Judge Cook's staff attorney for three years, she witnessed her treatment of employees, the turnover of her staff, and her need to micro-manage.

“An astronomical amount of taxpayer money goes into the judicial system,” Ms. Horen said. “With that, the public should have confidence that judges are not taking on the role of social worker, leaving that job to those trained in that area, but rather that they are performing activities to assure the public that they are being fair and impartial in the administration of justice.”

Judge Cook fired Ms. Horen in 2009, leading Ms. Horen to sue the county in federal court over what she claimed was a wrongful termination. The case was dismissed.

Contact Jennifer Feehan at: jfeehan@theblade.com or 419-213-2134.

First Published April 27, 2018, 9:46 p.m.