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Shop NowSheriff Shawn Stines is pleading not guilty to murder. His admittedly intentional shooting of District Judge Kevin Mullins was more of a first-degree manslaughter kind of thing, defense attorney Jeremy Bartley argues. Everyone got to see a brief clip of the brutal assassination in court. Parts of the video kept away from the public shed more light on what led up to the sheriff’s “extreme emotional disturbance.” There’s a good chance that when his lawyers explain exactly why Stines went above and beyond his law enforcement duties to become prosecutor, court and executioner, the jury might be sympathetic and let him off easy.
Sheriff says he snapped
Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines insists he didn’t “murder” his buddy the judge, though he admits shooting Kevin Mullins repeatedly. The details weren’t spelled out clearly in court but enough breadcrumbs fell on the floor to piece together a trail toward his motive.
The video played October 1 at Stines’ preliminary hearing was shocking. Everyone running administration for Letcher County, Kentucky, knows both of them well. They all live in one of those tiny Appalachian towns where everyone is related a little too closely.
On Monday, 43-year-old Stines officially resigned as County Sheriff. That’s a pretty good idea because he’s currently in jail. He arrived in court Tuesday with handcuffs on and sat quietly “as prosecutors presented their evidence in the murder of District Judge Kevin Mullins.”
He became visibly emotional as the clip of him fatally shooting the judge was viewed.
Because the deceased would have handled the criminal case, they called in Judge Rupert Wilhoit from a neighboring county to hold the proceeding. He had no problem finding “probable cause to refer the first-degree murder charge to a grand jury.” Stines and his attorneys aren’t even trying to deny he shot the judge dead.
They also don’t deny he paused on the way out the door to shoot Mullins some more, when he saw a movement. Instead, they claim he “snapped.” He was just a tad upset with the 54-year-old judge. For apparently very personal reasons. As Bartley argued, Sheriff Stines was experiencing an “extreme emotional disturbance” at the time of the shooting.
Let me see your phone
The video clip was brutal. Once everyone saw the judge’s desperate final moments, the lawyer for the former sheriff took charge. “I think they’ve established probable cause for manslaughter first, but not murder.”
He’s sticking with the not guilty plea he entered last week. There isn’t any audio but that’s not crucial. The short clip from a longer surveillance video “appears to show Mullins crouching behind his desk as Stines shoots him multiple times.”
If that wasn’t enough to send it to the grand jury, as then sheriff Stines “prepares to walk out of the room, Stines appears to see Mullins moving again under his desk and fires several more shots.”
He accepts full responsibility for shooting Mullins but isn’t anywhere close to happy about it. “As the video played, Stines turned his head away from the screen and then lowered his eyes. Several people in the gallery on the prosecution side of the courtroom could be heard sobbing and moaning.”
What wasn’t in the 20 second video tells the rest of the story. The men had lunch together at a restaurant just prior. The only thing which seemed anywhere close to interesting is a statement the judge made, asking the sheriff “do we need to meet private in my chambers?” Apparently, the answer was yes.
Police detectives “affirmed Stines was seen in a section of the surveillance video not played in court calling his daughter on his own phone, and then asking to see Mullins’ phone, and the judge complied.” The witness “was told that Sheriff Stines had tried to call his daughter, and he had tried to call his daughter from the judge’s phone also.” His reportedly underage daughter. That’s when Stines started blasting.
