Kentucky sheriff hints at why he shot judge friend in bombshell legal filing
By Will Potter
Daily Mail
Mar 6, 2025
A Kentucky sheriff who shot and killed a local judge last year may be preparing to claim an insanity defense when he stands trial.
An attorney for accused killer, the former Letcher County Sheriff Shawn 'Mickey' Stines, 43, indicated this week that his client's state of mind at the time of the shooting of District Judge Kevin Mullins will be key to his upcoming trial.
Defense attorney Jeremy Bartley issued a legal filing this week stating his plans for an insanity defense on behalf of Stines, according to WATE.
Bartley told NewsNation on Wednesday that since taking on the case, he has considered a range of defenses, including arguing extreme emotional distress up to an insanity defense that would remove all criminal responsibility.
He said the case will hinge on testimony that Stines gave at a deposition days before the the September 2024 shooting. That saw the sheriff answer questions about one of his deputies allegedly sexually assaulting jail inmates.
An accuser in that case claimed that she was forced by a deputy sheriff to have sex in Mullins' chambers for six months in exchange for staying out of jail.
Bartley said Stines feared that backlash from his deposition testimony caused him to fear that his or his family's lives were in danger.
The attorney said Stines' 'mental health' was affected by the perceived threat.
'Ultimately, he was in fear for the safety of his wife and his daughter, and I think what you see there is the result of that,' the defense attorney said.
Stines, seen after his arrest, was reportedly telling officers that his 'wife and kid' were in danger when he was detained for Mullins' shooting
It comes amid allegations that Judge Mullins himself may have been tied to a sex-for-favors scandal in their small town of Whitesburg.
When Stines was taken into custody for the shooting, he allegedly exclaimed: 'They’re trying to kidnap my wife and kid.'
Accuser Sabrina Adkins claimed that she was forced, alongside other women, to have sex with former Deputy Sheriff Ben Fields in exchange for favorable treatment after their arrests.
She told NewsNation that Mullins 'does have some videotapes of some stuff in the judge’s chambers… just with girls, sexual and stuff.'
Fields was fired by Stines before being ultimately arrested and sentenced to six months of jail. Stines' testimony in federal court over the case has since been linked to Mullins' shooting.
In his filing this week, Bartley said that 'expert evidence relating to a mental disease or defect or mental condition bearing on the issue of guilt and punishment' will be presented in his case.
Bartley said he believes there may be 'more evidence that would support a finding that he wasn't criminally responsible', but did not offer specifics.
In Stines' last court appearance on January 17, prosecutor Jackie Steele said he is anticipating that the former sheriff will not stand trial for some time, as the discovery process could take upwards of six months to complete.
But Bartley said he filed his notice planning to use a mental health defense in trial because state law required him to do so, and 'normally, we're not required to do it until much later.'
'We don't have a trial date yet, but in the interest of expediting the inevitable evaluation that the commonwealth's going to want to take place (in jail), we went ahead and gave that notice,' he added.
Stines' attorney said this week that there may be 'more evidence that would support a finding that he wasn't criminally responsible' for the shooting
Stines' attorney Jeremy Bartley said this week that 'expert evidence relating to a mental disease or defect or mental condition bearing on the issue of guilt and punishment' will be presented in the upcoming trial
Stines has remained in custody since the shooting, which was captured on shocking footage that showed the sheriff enter Mullins' chambers and blast eight bullets into him.
In the moments before, officials said that Stines tried to call his daughter before grabbing Mullins' phone and also trying to call her.
The motive behind the shooting has still not been offered by prosecutors.
Prosecutors said the shooting came seemingly out of the blue, as the sheriff and judge had enjoyed lunch together that afternoon, and shared an outside table at the popular Streetside Grill & Bar on Main Street for lunch, only a few hundred yards from the courthouse.
The pair were longtime friends and lunchtime regulars together at the sports bar and on that fateful Thursday ordered their usual – both having the $13.99 wings with salad.
Detectives are probing a potential motive, with one theory reportedly investigated by detectives being whether Stines discovered his daughter's phone number in Mullins' phone.
CCTV footage played in court during a preliminary hearing on October 2 showed Stines checking his phone before making a call from the judge's.
Kentucky State Police Detective Clayton Stamper testified that he was told the sheriff had tried to contact his daughter from both devices.
The two men had become friends after Stines served as Mullins' bailiff in his courthouse since 2009, before he was elected sheriff in 2018.
Video of the shooting shows Stines pointing his weapon at Mullins as his hands are raised cowering behind his desk - but the sheriff's lawyers insist the killing was not planned.
'It was not something that was planned and occurred in the heat of passion. For us, the highest level of culpability should be manslaughter based on the partial defense of extreme emotional disturbance,' Bartley previously told PEOPLE.
2 comments:
If there is no doubt whatsoever that he actually did it (which is true)and there doesn't seem to be anything by way of justification, you just run it up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes.
I once arrived on a scene in East Texas where a person of interest told the local cop that the man he shot needed killing. Once the history of the dead man was entered in court, the trial jury agreed.
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