A stunning new development has emerged in the case of a Kentucky sheriff accused of murdering a judge in his own chambers, as the defense reveals a motive centered on paranoia and legal pressure, not the salacious rumors that have swirled online. The attorney for former Letcher County Sheriff Mickey Stines, charged with the murder of Judge Kevin Mullins, has provided Fox News Digital with a detailed account pointing to his client’s deteriorating mental state fueled by a recent civil deposition.
In an exclusive Monday interview, attorneys Jeremy and Carrie Bartley stated Stines was in the grip of severe paranoia, believing his family was in imminent danger, when he entered the Whitesburg courthouse on the day of the shooting. This psychological crisis, they argue, was triggered by a federal lawsuit that named Stines as a defendant and in which he was deposed just three days prior to the fatal incident. The defense forcefully denies any connection between the murder and online speculation regarding a relationship between the judge and Stines’s daughter.
According to Jeremy Bartley, the civil suit filed by Sabrina Atkins in January 2024 created immense pressure on his client. The lawsuit alleges former deputy Ben Fields exchanged sexual favors for leniency in home incarceration monitoring, and it names Stines for failing to adequately supervise Fields. Bartley claims the suit drew intense scrutiny to activities within the courthouse, leading to the highly unusual installation of a security camera in Judge Mullins’s chambers itself.
“This civil suit had drawn a lot of attention to things that were happening in the courthouse,” Bartley told Fox News Digital. He further stated Stines felt “a lot of pressure placed on him not to say too much during the deposition and not to talk about the things that happened within the courthouse.” Witnesses and investigators reportedly corroborate that Stines had become withdrawn, sleepless, and so visibly distressed that co-workers urged him to seek medical help, which he did the day before the shooting.
The defense narrative details that on the day of the murder, Stines repeatedly attempted to contact his wife and daughter from within the judge’s chambers, even using the judge’s phone, firmly convinced they were under threat. Bartley linked this belief directly to the secrets and alleged threats surrounding the civil case. He also clarified that while Stines and Mullins knew each other professionally and had lunch shortly before the shooting, they were not close personal friends. Stines, who has been charged with first-degree murder, is planning to enter an insanity plea based on this portrait of acute paranoid distress. This legal strategy shifts the focus entirely away from personal vendetta and toward a calculated argument about the defendant’s mental state at the time of the crime. The revelation comes alongside the release of new video footage from the scene, which independent investigators have promoted as exclusive coverage from the remote eastern Kentucky town.
The case now presents a complex legal battle, pivoting on whether a jury will accept that the pressures of a scandalous lawsuit and deposition could precipitate a psychotic break in a seasoned law enforcement officer. The insanity defense in Kentucky requires proving the defendant was unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct due to a severe mental illness. If successful, it could result in commitment to a mental health facility rather than a prison sentence, though for how long remains a subject of intense speculation.
This new motive sheds light on the shadowy allegations of misconduct within the Letcher County courthouse that preceded the tragedy, suggesting the shooting was a violent culmination of systemic pressures and personal unraveling. As the judicial process moves forward, the community and the nation await further answers in a case that has laid bare the intersecting tensions of law, power, and mental health in a small Appalachian town.
