Former Letcher County Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines will stay behind bars without bond while he awaits trial on a murder charge in the shooting death of District Judge Kevin Mullins, after the Kentucky Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed a lower court's decision to deny him bail.
The ruling, signed Oct. 15, upholds a Letcher Circuit Court order that found the evidence against Stines clear enough to justify holding him without bond, according to Spectrum News. Stines is charged with murder in the death of Mullins, who was shot at the Letcher County courthouse in September 2024. Stines was arrested days after the shooting and has remained in custody without bail while the case moves forward.
Defense Challenged the Video Evidence
Stines's legal team filed the bond appeal after Special Judge Christopher Cohron denied bail in August, a hearing at which the court also granted prosecutors' request for an additional mental-health evaluation of Stines. The court had granted the change-of-venue motion in June, moving the case out of Letcher County. At that hearing, the trial court found that the proof of guilt was evident and the presumption of guilt was great, the standard required to hold a defendant without bail in a capital case, the same report notes.
On appeal, Stines's attorneys argued the Commonwealth had not met that burden. They contended that video evidence purporting to show Stines shooting and killing Mullins was never authenticated or backed by the required testimony, according to wymt.com. The defense team's position was that the Commonwealth failed to prove guilt was evident, as the law requires before bail can be denied in a capital case.
The video at the center of the dispute was presented by prosecutors at a June 5 evidentiary hearing, where the court said it showed Stines shooting and killing Mullins in the judge's chambers, per the same Spectrum News account. That footage had been admitted into evidence during a preliminary hearing earlier in the case.
Judge Says Authentication Rules Don't Apply to Bail Hearings
Judge Christopher McNeill, who signed the appellate order, rejected the defense's authentication argument outright. In an order signed in mid-October, McNeill ruled that video-authentication requirements simply do not apply to bail hearings, finding instead that the footage made the facts of the crime more probable and undeniable, the station's report states.
That reasoning tracks with longstanding Kentucky appellate procedure, which generally gives trial judges wide latitude on bail decisions. Stines appealed the trial court's decision to deny bail.
Mental-Health Evaluation Fight Continues Separately
While the bond appeal has now been resolved, a related dispute over Stines's mental health has generated its own appellate fight. The additional evaluation ordered in August has drawn a separate challenge, and the Court of Appeals granted a motion for immediate relief on Oct. 9 that temporarily paused that evaluation order, according to yahoo.com.
No trial date has been set in the case, according to wjhl.com. For now, Stines remains jailed without bail as the case proceeds through Kentucky's courts, with both the murder charge and the separate mental-health evaluation dispute still unresolved.
