Kentucky ex-sheriff's 'frivolous' insanity claim won't fly in judge's suspected murder: former prosecutors
Stines is accused of shooting and killing District Judge Kevin Mullins in the judge's chambers inside the Letcher County Courthouse on Sept. 19, 2024, in an attack that was captured on surveillance video.
"It's very rare in most states, including Kentucky, the insanity defense and similar mental health defenses rarely work, because if the person knows right from wrong at the time they committed some criminal act, then any mental health issues are, I guess, secondary," Phil Holloway, a former prosecutor and legal analyst based in Georgia, told Fox News Digital. "If they know right from wrong, they can still be convicted even if they have a mental health issue."
Last week, Fox News Digital released video footage of a Kentucky State Police (KSP) investigator and two troopers questioning a paranoid Stines in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
"I leave this building, I won't draw another breath," Stines told KSP Investigator Clayton Stamper, who led the investigation.
"Y'all are gonna kill me, aren't you?" he asked at one point in the interview. "Y'all are gonna kill me, I know you are. Let's just get it over with. Let's just go."
Holloway said even if the sheriff was paranoid, he still knew that the killing was wrong.
"If you look at the sheriff's video from his discussions with law enforcement in the hallway right after the shooting, the sheriff expresses that he's concerned that the police or some other unnamed third party might hurt him or kill him," Holloway said.
"And he's asking the cops, you know, he's even alleging that the police might stop en route to the jail to allow somebody else to do something. Now, those things might seem paranoid, and they may seem irrational, but at the same time, when he expresses those things to the officers, to me that indicates that he knows that killing is wrong.
"It's interesting because he's telling the cop, he's telling the police not to do it. So, in a way, he's telegraphing that he knows right from wrong. And he knows that killing is wrong because he's asking the police to not kill him."
Michael Wynne, a former prosecutor based in Houston, agrees with Holloway, especially given the surveillance footage from Mullins' chambers in the moments leading up to the shooting.
"I think this is a frivolous defense," he told Fox News Digital. "The video shows he knows what he's doing is wrong. If you don't know what you're doing is wrong, you don't usher everybody else out of the room, and you don't go ahead and make sure the door is closed. Those are all things that show that he has an ability to make cognizant decisions."
Wynne said he believes the best Stines will be able to do is plead guilty to the charges in hopes of taking the death penalty off the table, or potentially being given an opportunity for parole.
"Based on the facts, he will lose the case [and] there will be a guilty verdict," Wynne said. "Now, the jury and judge are not supposed to weigh the fact that the defense puts on a case here of insanity. But people are people. And, you know, he'll be punished by the judge and the jury for raising what I think this is a frivolous defense."
According to Stines' attorney, Jeremy Bartley, his defense is closely tied to allegations of sexual abuse that plagued Letcher County authorities, including some in the courthouse.
Three days before the shooting, Stines was deposed in a civil sexual assault case against his former deputy, Ben Shields, who was accused of sexually abusing a woman. Stines was also named for failing to supervise Fields.
Bartley declined to comment for this story but previously told Fox News Digital, "I think one of the big things is that my client felt there had been pressure placed on him not to say too much during the deposition, and not to talk about things that happened within the courthouse, particularly in the judge's chambers."
Bartley said that threats against Stines' family caused the paranoia to reach a fever pitch.
"On the day that this [shooting] happened, my client had attempted multiple times to contact his wife and daughter, and he firmly believed that they were in danger," Bartley said. "He believed that they were in danger because of what he knew to have happened within the courthouse. And there was pressure, and there were threats made to him to sort of keep him in line, to keep them from saying more than these folks wanted him to say."
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