Special judge won’t recuse himself in murder case against KY sheriff who shot a judge
The special judge assigned to the murder case against former Letcher County Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines has declined to recuse himself.
Stines was charged with murder after he shot and killed Letcher County District Judge Kevin Mullins in Mullins’ chambers in September 2024. The shooting was captured on surveillance video.
Circuit Judge Christopher Cohron, of Bowling Green, was appointed special judge in the case, but Stines’ attorneys had asked that Cohron recuse himself or that the chief justice of the state Supreme Court remove him.
In January, the Supreme Court declined to remove Cohron from the case, saying he should be given a chance to decide whether to recuse himself first.
Now that Cohron has denied their request, Stines’ attorneys could ask the Supreme Court again to remove him.
Stines’ attorneys argued that the week before the shooting, Cohron sat next to Mullins at a judges’ conference, which they said might sway him.
Cohron said he and Mullins both served on the Kentucky Judicial Commission on Mental Health and attended a quarterly meeting of the group seven days before the shooting.
“Judge Mullins and I shared the legal profession and may, in that regard, be viewed as colleagues, but our nominal, purely professional association is not the degree of relationship which would interfere with my duty to uphold and apply the law and to perform judicial duties fairly and impartially or suggest an appearance of partiality,” Cohron wrote in an order filed on Friday in Letcher Circuit Court.
Stines’ lawyers said Mullins spoke at the judges’ conference about humane treatment of female inmates and that Cohron sat “inches away” during the two-hour meeting, which was held Sept. 12, 2024. The attorneys say Cohron did not disclose that when he was appointed to preside over Stines’ case.
“I fully believe that sharing no more than the same area at a professional meeting, with dozens of other individuals in attendance, no one would reasonably consider it relevant to a possible motion for disqualification,” Cohron wrote.
Cohron said in the order that he “cannot recall a formal or informal, professional or personal, interaction with Judge Mullins on any occasion.”
“My peripheral contact with Judge Mullins falls on the continuum between mere familiarity and acquaintanceship, a level of relationship which does not generate bias or prejudice against a defendant,.” he wrote.
