CNN
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The Kentucky sheriff who authorities say shot and killed a prominent district judge in his chambers after the two men argued last week is expected to be arraigned in the case Wednesday, a hearing that will take place far from the tight-knit community deeply shaken by the death.
Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines, 43, was arrested Thursday at the Whitesburg County Courthouse on suspicion of fatally shooting District Judge Kevin Mullins, 54.
Stines, who authorities said turned himself in after the shooting, will appear Wednesday for his arraignment by video from the Leslie County Jail — where he is being held, a few counties west of where he was sheriff and the judge was killed.
The hearing would normally have been held in Mullins’ courtroom, which remains closed this week because of the killing. The arraignment will be conducted by a judge in a Carter County courthouse, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the crime scene, court officials said.
According to the Kentucky Sheriffs Association, Stines was responsible for security at county courthouses, including personal security for judges. He is now charged with first-degree murder, and it is not yet known who will replace him as sheriff.
Authorities said the circumstances surrounding the incident in the judge’s office moments before the fatal shooting that afternoon remain under investigation. Other people were in the building when the judge was shot, but no one else was in his office, Kentucky State Police Trooper Matt Gayheart said.
Cameras were inside the building and any witnesses will be interviewed, said Gayheart, who noted that this was the first time a tragedy “of this magnitude” had struck the county.
Stines and Mullins had lunch together hours before the shooting, Circuit Court Clerk Mike Watts told CNN affiliate WKYT.
“The entire county is devastated by this,” Watts told WKYT, referring to the void left in the local justice system. “Not only did we lose our sheriff and our district judge, but I lost two personal friends that I worked with on a daily basis.”
Days before the shooting, on September 16, Stines had been deposed in an ongoing federal lawsuit involving a former deputy who coerced a woman into having sex with him in 2021, CNN previously reported.
The lawsuit alleges that sexual allegations against the deputy “were not properly investigated by Sheriff Stines,” who fired the deputy in 2022.
Jonathan Shaw, the attorney representing Stines in his official capacity in the trial, told CNN in an email that he does not have the authority to speak on Stines’ personal behalf in the federal trial or in the murder case.
Many residents knew the two prominent community figures, and friends of the sheriff and judge said they were stunned by the killing and had trouble understanding why it happened.
The quiet, seemingly routine day in court turned chaotic when police received a 911 call just before 3 p.m. Thursday reporting shots fired from inside the courthouse, state police said.
After hearing reports of an active shooter in the courthouse, court security officer Wallace Kincer and Watts, the circuit court clerk, sprang into action, directing attorneys and court staff away from the unknown danger lurking in the chambers, according to Matt Butler, Letcher County Commonwealth’s Attorney.
Fear spread across the county when Letcher County Public Schools students were placed on lockdown shortly before 3:30 p.m.
Mullins was found with multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
Butler recused himself and his office from the sheriff’s trial because he and the judge married two sisters and their children act more like siblings than cousins, he said in a statement last week.
“Our community has suffered an act of violence that appears to have occurred between two men I worked with for seventeen years and loved like brothers,” Butler said in a social media post.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman’s office will work with Jackie Steele, the commonwealth’s attorney assigned to the case, as special prosecutors on the case, he said.
Some residents, including Butler, are calling for more adequate security protocols at the courthouse, such as installing a metal detector and adding security at the entrance.
“The Letcher County Courthouse is one of the last courthouses that you can enter without a metal detector or security at the front door,” said Butler, who called it “unacceptable.”
Mullins is survived by his wife and two daughters, his obituary said. “He died in his courthouse office where he spent his career working to help people,” the obituary said.
As a “passionate advocate for recovery efforts across Kentucky,” Mullins worked to combat the opioid epidemic by providing access to treatment and helping those affected by substance use disorders, mental illnesses and disabilities, according to his obituary.
CNN’s Andy Rose, Dalia Faheid and Dakin Andone contributed to this report.
