The Kentucky sheriff accused of killing a district judge plans to mount an insanity defense.
Former Letcher County Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines will “present a defense of insanity, as well as…extreme emotional disturbance,” court records reviewed reveal.
“We’re confident that there will be evidence that his mental health was impaired,” defense attorney Jeremy Bartley tells us. “It’s a tragic situation all around.”
Stines is accused of killing 54-year-old District Judge Kevin Mullins after an argument in the judge’s chambers in the city of Whitesburg on Thursday, Sept. 19.
A video of the shooting appeared to show Stines firing at Mullins multiple times while the judge was sitting at his desk and then after he fell to the floor.
Three days before the shooting, Stines gave a five-hour deposition in a civil lawsuit by two women who claimed former deputy sheriff Ben Fields pressured them into having sex with him in 2021. One of the women alleged she was forced to have sex with Fields inside Mullins’ private courthouse office.
Fields pleaded guilty to third-degree rape, third-degree sodomy, two counts of tampering with a prisoner monitoring device and second-degree perjury in the case involving one of the women, per the Mountain Eagle.
“We believe that the evidence will show there was an extreme amount of pressure placed upon him to be careful in what he said in the civil suit,” says Bartley.
Stines didn’t sleep for days following the deposition, and his coworkers and family became so concerned for him they “basically had an intervention and took him to a medical provider” the day before the shooting, Bartley said. Witnesses said that Stines had “expressed his fear of other people harming him or his family,” the attorney continued.
“I believe that there is reason to believe that there was an objective threat,” he says. “But we believe his mental health impaired his ability to determine the immediacy of that threat.”
Police have yet to provide a motive in the alleged slaying, which has rocked tiny Letcher County, where Stines and Mullins were longtime friends and colleagues. Stines served as the bailiff in Mullins’ court before he became sheriff in 2018.
Mullins wide jurisdiction as judge included misdemeanors, traffic offenses, arraignments, small claims, civil cases and probate of wills, among other things, according to a Letcher County website.
The two men had eaten lunch earlier that day with a handful of people, a Kentucky State Police detective testified during a preliminary hearing in October, per the Louisville Courier Journal.
