The attorney for the Kentucky sheriff who allegedly shot and killed his friend, a judge, said the killing was a crime of passion committed while his client was experiencing “extreme emotional turmoil.”
Jeremy Bartley, the attorney for former Letcher County Sheriff Sean Stynes, said the shooting was not planned and his client's charges should be reduced from murder to manslaughter.
“It wasn't planned and happened in the heat of passion,” Bartley said. people.
“For us, the highest level of guilt should be manslaughter based on the partial defense of extreme mental disorder.”
Stines, 43, is accused of fatally shooting District Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, multiple times in his courtroom hours after the friends he had known for decades had lunched together. It was captured on chilling surveillance camera footage.
The footage shows Stines and Mullins having a heated exchange in their room at the Letcher County Courthouse in Whitesburg on Sept. 19, before the sheriff pulls out a gun and points it at the jurist's head. Ta.
Mullins, who was sitting behind a desk, raised his hands in fear and was about to turn away when Steins allegedly fired eight shots at him, the video showed.
The video showed Mullins hiding under a desk after he was shot.
The sheriff then allegedly approached the judge who was under his desk and shot Mullins twice at close range before leaving the courtroom where he had served for 15 years.
Kentucky Detective Clayton Stamper said additional footage from the room, which has not been shown or released in court, shows the sheriff using his and Mullins' cellphones to call their daughter multiple times moments before the cold-blooded killing. He testified that he was filmed doing so.
Stamper confirmed that police found Stein's daughter's phone number on the judge's cell phone.
The sheriff turned himself in shortly after the shooting and asked police to “treat him fairly” once he was taken into custody.
Stamper later told police, “They're trying to kidnap my wife and child,” Stines told police.
The first footage of the execution was played by prosecutors at a hearing last week, and a judge sent the case to a grand jury for indictment.
A motive is still unclear, but authorities previously suggested the murder was being investigated as a possible sex scandal, but did not provide further details.
The case remains under investigation as police interview additional witnesses and examine both cell phones.
Stines has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and is being held in the Leslie County Jail.
