[1] Cox lost the Republican gubernatorial primary election August 3, 2010, coming in third behind Rick Snyder and Pete Hoekstra.

[8] In 2006, the unit arrested Detroit consultant Ken Gourlay after Cox read a story in The New York Times depicting the abuse of Mr. Berry in the underground world of child pornography.

Attorney General investigators found hundreds of computers with thousands of pornographic images in Gourlay's possession.

Eventually, Gourlay was convicted of several charges including enticing a child to engage in sexually abusive activity and was sentenced to six years by circuit court judge Archie Brown in 2007.

Cox played a role in aftermath of a party at Manoogian Mansion, then the residence of Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

[10][11][12] Citing no evidence, no proof, and no witnesses, Cox declined to offer a subpoena, effectively closing an investigation by the State of Michigan into allegations of the "wild party.

[10] In response, Cox said that he closed the investigation after interviewing more than 130 people who stated the party never took place,[18] and called the accusations against him "absolute bullshit".

[23] Mike Cox was one of the few elected officials to support the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative which was a constitutional amendment to ban racial and gender preferences for state institutions in 2006.

[25] After Cox's refusal, then-Governor Granholm submitted a brief in her capacity as Governor supporting the University's position, not on behalf of the State of Michigan.

[27] On April 22, 2014, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the State in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action.

Cox received nationwide press in 2007 when the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that adultery could be prosecuted as first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a resulting life in prison sentence.

This unanimous decision was reached as a result of an appeal sought by Cox's office on a drug case that touched in part on this strange loophole in the law.

[14] Cox joined nineteen other state attorneys general, all but one being Republican, in challenging the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act after its passage.

[34][35] Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, a professor of law at the Washington and Lee University, has criticized this unusual move as being not only "frivolous" but a waste of taxpayers' dollars.

Cox urged the legislature to overturn the 2004 constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions.