LETCHER COUNTY, Ky. (WJHL) — The defense for former Letcher County sheriff Shawn Mickey Stines has formally opposed a request by prosecutors for a second 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.

Prosecutors for the Commonwealth of Kentucky and Stines’s own attorneys have filed a multitude of documents in early September 2025. The two sides have argued over a request to change the trial’s venue, whether or not to unseal a mental health evaluation of Stines and dismissing the case altogether over grand jury proceedings.

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) conducted a mental health evaluation of Stines, and copies of its findings were provided to the court and involved parties in July. Stines’s attorneys have filed a motion to unseal that report, which the Commonwealth has formally opposed.

Prosecutors have also requested to independently examine Stines with their own private expert to address the insanity defense that his attorneys plan to use.

On Wednesday, the defense responded to the Commonwealth’s request for a second mental health evaluation, opposing it and saying there was no need to subject Stines to another examination.

The defense argued that the KCPC evaluation was done in accordance with the statutory framework and ensured fairness for both sides. Attorneys for Stines wrote that while the Commonwealth was free to use an expert to review the first examination and provide a view on it, there was no basis for making Stines undergo another evaluation.

“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.