In Letcher County, Kentucky, the defense team for former sheriff Shawn Mickey Stines is opposing a prosecution request for another mental health evaluation.

Stines is accused of first-degree murder and murder of a public official in the shooting death of District Judge Kevin Mullins in September 2024.

Legal teams have submitted numerous documents in September 2025 addressing a request to change the venue for the trial, the sealing of Stines’s mental health report, and possible dismissal due to grand jury issues.

The mental health and condition of Stines has been a pivotal point of arguments made in court regarding the case.

The Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric Center (KCPC) completed an evaluation of Stines in July, which was shared with the court and involved parties. Stines’s legal team has pushed to unseal this report, a move countered by the prosecution.

Prosecutors seek to evaluate Stines independently via their expert to address the insanity defense his attorneys are likely to present.

The defense, however, rebuffed this request by arguing another evaluation was unnecessary since the KCPC’s assessment met statutory requirements and ensured fairness for both parties.

They suggested that while prosecutors could have their expert review the initial evaluation, compulsory further examination of Stines lacks justification.

“The Commonwealth has the existing KCPC report, medical records, and other discovery already available for its expert to base her/his opinion,” the defense wrote in its response. “In this case, the initial KCPC evaluation is sufficient, and there is no evidence to suggest that a second evaluation is warranted other than the desire for a second opinion.”

Defense attorneys claimed that allowing a second evaluation would “unnecessarily prejudice” Stines and wrote that Kentucky law allows for “a” mental health examination, not multiple.