The former Eastern Kentucky sheriff caught on camera gunning down a district court judge in his office last year has admitted to the slaying but claims his actions were unintentional.

Attorneys for former Letcher County Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines say he “lacked the capacity to intend” to shoot and kill District Court Judge Kevin Mullins in September 2024.

Stines has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder of a public official, but his latest admission in a separate civil wrongful death case last month supports criminal case filings that suggest his attorneys are mounting a broad insanity defense.

Mullins was shot nine times behind his desk at the Letcher County Courthouse in Whitesburg. The act was captured by a CCTV camera mounted on his office wall. A motive for Stines, who was arrested on scene the day of the shooting, quickly became the subject of public speculation, fueled by internet sleuths and national news outlets.

Proving mental incapacitation or extreme emotional distress could spare Stines from facing the death penalty under Kentucky law, but standards of intent differ in civil cases. Mullins’ widow, who is administering the former judge’s estate, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Stines and three other Letcher County Sheriff’s Office employees Sept. 18.

Kimberly Mullins and the couple’s two daughters accuse Stines of assault and battery and say the three other sheriff’s employees failed to warn and protect the judge, despite signs the sheriff was violently paranoid, anxious and psychotic leading up to the incident.

In his Nov. 12 answer to the civil suit, Stines admits to shooting Mullins and said he believes he was “exhibiting paranoid and psychotic conduct.” His attorneys laid out a series of potential defenses they may use in court that hinge on his state of mind, including that he “had no control,” suffered from “pre-existing conditions” and did not intend malice.

His attorneys also moved to dismiss the case under the sovereign immunity doctrine, which protects government officials from civil liability claims as long as they were acting in their official capacity.

“As Sheriff, he was a county employee and, therefore, is entitled to the same sovereign immunity granted to the County itself,” his attorneys wrote. “Based on this, the official capacity claims against Shawn Stines must be dismissed.”

Stines’ attorneys also moved to dismiss negligence claims against him on the grounds such claims require intent.

Crucial to Stines’ claims of insanity is a federal investigation that targeted him in the months leading up to the shooting. The probe was related to a lawsuit claiming Stines failed to properly supervise a deputy who coerced a woman into having sex in Mullins’ office.

In a deposition Stines gave investigators just days before he shot Mullins, the sheriff said he had been suffering from dizziness, sweating, headaches and memory loss brought on by California encephalitis, a neurological disease caused by bug bites.

A judge last week denied two motions to dismiss the criminal case against Stines. Attorneys for the ex-sheriff argued prosecutors failed to inform a grand jury about his mental state at the time of the shooting and a grand jury proceeding was intentionally not recorded.

Jail intake records show Stines was still in a state of active psychosis days after the shooting.

In October, attorneys for sheriff’s office employees Jason Eckels, LaShawna Frazier and Christine Bolling also moved to dismiss the civil claims brought against them by the Mullins’ estate, claiming sovereign immunity and that they lacked a “special relationship” with Stines required to prove they failed to uphold a duty to protect or alert others of a potential crime.

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