Common Pleas Presiding and Administrative Judge Brendan Sheehan announced McDonnell's passing and said the judge, who was married with grown children, died  “with her husband, John Kosko, by her side.”

Sheehan said that "Judge McDonnell was a trailblazer, serving as our court’s first female administrative and presiding judge from 2006-2009"

A Democrat in the heavily Democratic Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland,  Judge McDonnell was over the drug court.

She was a Lakewood resident, and was the older sister of Cleveland criminal defense attorney James McDonnell.

Considered one of the more scholarly judges, McDonnell  graduated from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.  Magna cum laude and later the Cleveland Marshall School of Law. She was an assistant county prosecutor before winning a seat on the common pleas bench.