HANCOCK COUNTY — The county’s judges decided not to open up the hiring process to find their new magistrate. Instead, they have selected the current court commissioner, Cody Coombs.
“I was pretty excited,” Coombs said upon hearing the news from the judges earlier this week. “This is a job I love doing, being the court commissioner and now a magistrate. I’m very excited and very thankful.”
Judge D.J. Davis of Hancock County Superior Court 1 said Coombs will continue with duties similar to those he has taken on as court commissioner in the 3½ years he’s been in that job. He fills in for the three judges and hears cases as commissioner. However, as the magistrate, Coombs will have more authority to sign off on all of the cases he hears, giving the judges — who now review his work — more time to handle their own cases.
“The way I go about my job and the things I’m assigned will not change,” Coombs said. “But, a lot of the things we had to do behind the scenes to make orders enforceable we don’t have to go through anymore, and that will clear things up and it will make my job easier.”
Coombs, 42, Greenfield, was the judges’ front-runner all along as they thought about opening the position for others to apply. After checking with state and county officials earlier this week, who gave them the green light to hire Coombs without a lengthy hiring process, the judges informed Coombs the job was his.
“All of us have been really happy with the job Cody has done, and he’s well-respected and liked in the courthouse and community, and I have no problem saying I have never seen anyone work any harder,” Davis said, speaking of behalf of the county judges.
The judges didn’t want to get other possible candidates’ hopes up and have them go through a lengthy hiring process for the position if in the end Coombs was the best person for the job. Davis cited Coombs’ multiple years working with the judges and his familiarity with the county court system as major pluses.
Davis noted Coombs has been a great resource to him personally and said he’s not sure he would have gotten through his first few months on the bench without Coombs’ help.
“The other important thing was do we tell Cody, ‘Yeah, we like you, think you’re doing a good job here, but we’re going to see if there is somebody better than you?’ What would we be telling him?” Davis said. “There was just no need to go through the hoops.”
All three of the county judges — Davis, Circuit Court Judge Scott Sirk, and Superior Court 2 Judge Dan Marshall — attended a dual county commissioner/council meeting on Monday, at which they made sure county leadership was good with them offering Coombs the position without allowing for other candidates. The open endorsement by the judges drew no objection from county officials.
Coombs, whose salary of $128,022 will be paid by the state, said he wanted the job because he loves the law.
“I like hearing cases, watching attorneys work and seeing evidence come in,” Coombs said. “It just happens to be a bonus the title of magistrate comes with my work.”
Coombs is well-known throughout the legal community in the county. After practicing law for several years at a local firm and on his own, he was appointed in January 2018 by county judges to serve as the court commissioner. In that role, he has worked basically as a fourth county judge in a variety of cases. He ran in the Republican primary in June 2020 as one of four candidates for the judge’s seat in Superior Court 1, a position Davis ended up winning. Coombs was also a candidate for a short time in 2018 for the Circuit Court seat before dropping out of the race Sirk won.
As for the thought of bringing more diversity, such as a woman or a person of color, into the judiciary, Davis said it was something the judges considered. But they determined there were not many qualified minorities practicing law in the county, coupled with the fact Coombs was more than well-qualified for the job.
“I’m not going to discount a person because they are a male,” Davis said. “You can’t do that.”
Judicial officials made the decision to eliminate the court commissioner’s position after working with legislators to establish the magistrate’s job, meaning Coombs would have been without a job had he not been hired as magistrate. That’s something the judges didn’t want to do to Coombs.
Court officials are on track to create another court in 2024, and Davis said that would be a good time to try to diversify the bench. They can either bring back a court commissioner position, or get another judge if case numbers continue to grow, which is expected due to county growth. Davis said they’ve already alerted lawmakers — who would have to create a fourth court — about the judiciary’s future plans.
The money being used to pay for the current court commissioner position will revert to the county budget, where officials will decide what to do with the funds. Davis is hoping to keep the money in the courts to hire a coordinator and director for the behavior/mental/veterans court program, which he hopes to have up and running as soon as this summer. Sirk is on record as saying he’d like to use the funds to give staff raises if possible.
