Judge won't dismiss indictment of Kentucky sheriff accused of killing judge

Taylor Six, Lexington Herald-Leader on Dec 4, 2025

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A judge on Wednesday denied a pair of motions filed by a former Eastern Kentucky sheriff accused of killing a district judge last year.

Special Judge Christopher T. Cohron declined to dismiss a murder indictment against Shawn Stines, 44, who was captured on video shooting and killing Judge Kevin Mullins on Sept. 19, 2024, inside the judge’s chambers.

In the rulings, released Thursday, Cohron also denied Stines’ lawyer’s request to unseal his client’s mental health evaluation, which the lawyer argued would help prove Stines was in extreme emotional distress at the time of the shooting.

Stines’ lawyer, Jeremy Bartley, has said his client’s defense will center on an insanity or emotional disturbance claim.

Cohron did grant Bartley’s request for a hearing to determine if Stines should be granted bond.

Bartley did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon.

In June, Stines asked that his indictment be dismissed, accusing prosecutors of intentionally failing to record a proceeding in front of the Letcher County grand jury and depriving the grand jury of information that spoke to Stines’s mental state.

However, Cohron ruled the prosecutors did not violate the law, and that the record did not prove Stines was prejudiced by prosecutorial misconduct.

Witnesses testified Stines was not himself in the days before the shooting because of a “tense deposition” he gave for a sexual assault case involving one of his deputies, Ben Fields.

Evidence in the court record shows Stines was considered in an active state of psychosis after the shooting, according to a jail medical provider.

Cohron ruled he will grant a bond hearing to discuss if Stines can have a bond, but his lawyers will not be able to discuss the contents of his state-conducted mental health evaluation.

“A bail hearing is not a trial rehearsal,” Cohron wrote.

Jackie Steele, a special prosecutor appointed to the case, has argued against a bond for Stines, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said defendants charged with a capital offense aren’t entitled to a bond.

A date has not been set for Stines’s bond hearing.

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