Sheriff Shoots Judge

[Briar Lee]

In Frankfort Kentucky (made famous to hillbilly singers by Tom T. Hall’s ballad I Flew Over Our House Last Night) the county Sheriff shot the local judge multiple times in chambers and killed him.

Xxx

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A judge in a rural Kentucky county was fatally shot in his courthouse chambers Thursday, and the local sheriff was charged with murder in the killing, police said.

The preliminary investigation indicates Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines shot District Judge Kevin Mullins multiple times following an argument inside the courthouse, according to Kentucky State Police. Mullins, who held the judgeship for 15 years, died at the scene, and Stines surrendered without incident.

The fatal shooting in Whitesburg sent shock waves through a tight-knit Appalachian town and county seat of government with about 1,700 residents located about 145 miles (235 kilometers) southeast of Lexington.

Xxxx

I’ve followed current events since I was two years old and Francis Gary Powers was shot down over Russia on a spy mission.

I can’t remember such a brazen act by any law enforcement officer against a judge.

If you believe in a death penalty, if it’s not imposed here, then when would you execute somebody?

A greater question is why?

I suspect we overtrain and desensitize our police forces.

They are peace officers, not soldiers.

If it was over a woman, then it’s maybe understandable.

But no nation can have the rule of law if the judges fear their sheriffs.

 

[samb]

My professional experience with judges is that they’re just regular people like the rest of us. You respect the position and the courtroom, but off the record they’re pretty normal. That’s an unfortunate event though.

 

[Briar Lee]

My professional experience with judges is that they’re just regular people like the rest of us. You respect the position and the courtroom, but off the record they’re pretty normal. That’s an unfortunate event though.

Since 1983 I’ve obeyed and respected judges in countless courtrooms.

And obeyed and respected the deputy Sheriff’s who are always in every courtroom or very close by.

The only thing worse than this would be for a judge to shoot a sheriff out of anger.

There are bad apple Sheriffs. In Missouri when that happens the Prosecutor has a judge appoint the County Coroner to arrest them.

If the motive behind this murder was anger over the judge’s rulings that Sheriff must be hung higher than Haman, as the only acceptable end to this story.

But if they were sharing the love of the same woman, this has all the makings of a good murder ballad.

This is why following the current news stories like this one is so captivating.

Why did he shoot him?

 

[Servant King]

Perhaps the judge was listening to "I Shot The Sheriff" at the time, and the sheriff simply mistook the lyrics as literal intentions of the judge and chose to turn the tables on him preemptively.

 

[samb]

I’m sure as the story develops they’ll release a motive

 

[Briar Lee]

Perhaps the judge was listening to "I Shot The Sheriff" at the time, and the sheriff simply mistook the lyrics as literal intentions of the judge and chose to turn the tables on him preemptively.

In 1980 I was a jail guard at the Jackson County Courthouse between my graduation from college in December 1979 and entrance to law school in the fall.

Usually we were not armed. But my superiors learned I was from Humansville and I had been on the UMKC police force and approved me to be armed when ordered to.

I had no training from Jackson County on the Model 10 Smith and Wesson 38 or the Remington 870 Riot shotgun they’d issue me when we transported prisoners.

In retrospect that was a good thing. I remained a good Christian boy with all my hillbilly morals and notions of right and wrong.

Today modern police training takes moral, decent kids and turns them into killers perched on a wire edge.

When I guarded prisoners I always wondered if I could shoot anybody.

I’m afraid the guards today are selecting targets in advance.

 

[cynyr]

Word around the campfire is about an inappropriate relation with the Sheriff's daughter.

 

[Briar Lee]

I’m sure as the story develops they’ll release a motive

Only if it has a surprise ending.

A curious fact is the local prosecutor’s wife and the dead judge’s wife are sisters.

When I was a uniformed police officer at UMKC one of my fellow officers used to say there are three cars women cannot resist,

A brand new station wagon for her kids

A Corvette

But the best one to get women is a police cruiser

If a woman with an eye for the sheriff caused all this, they’ll make a movie and a good ballad about it.

 

[Briar Lee]

Word around the campfire is about an inappropriate relation with the Sheriff's daughter.

Oh even better!

Hopefully she’s not quite legal, just almost.

 

[VDL_Piper]

Word around the campfire is about an inappropriate relation with the Sheriff's daughter.

If this is correct then the Judge got off lightly!

 

[Briar Lee]

If this is correct then the Judge got off lightly!

If this is correct, the judge was a middle aged man with a wife and kids, who’d stayed a judge 15 years.

As my old grandmother would have said, how hard would it be for a young girl to snag an old judge with a family?

Wouldn’t it be a twist if that young girl wanted her Daddy to shoot the judge?

 

[VDL_Piper]

If this is correct, the judge was a middle aged man with a wife and kids, who’d stayed a judge 15 years.

As my old grandmother would have said, how hard would it be for a young girl to snag an old judge with a family?

Wouldn’t it be a twist if that young girl wanted her Daddy to shoot the judge?

Conjecture!!!

 

[mingc]

The Sheriff's deputy had raped a female prisoner in the same Judge's chambers: https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/20/us/kentucky-judge-mullins-shot-friday/index.html (scroll down). This gets curiouser and curiouser.

 

[sablebrush52]

That’s a very unfortunate name for a county.

 

[Briar Lee]

The Sheriff's deputy had raped a female prisoner in the same Judge's chambers: https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/20/us/kentucky-judge-mullins-shot-friday/index.html (scroll down). This gets curiouser and curiouser.

The punishment for a deputy raping two prisoners in the judge’s chambers on multiple occasions was the Sheriff fired him and he recieved a suspended jail sentence.

Nice little scene in the movie, eh?

If the motive was the Sheriff’s daughter her age will determine if the father is considered a hero or the daughter a home wrecker and slut.

How old does a young girl need to be in order to just say no, to old judges?

We shall see.

 

[Grangerous]

In 1980 I was a jail guard at the Jackson County Courthouse between my graduation from college in December 1979 and entrance to law school in the fall.

Usually we were not armed. But my superiors learned I was from Humansville and I had been on the UMKC police force and approved me to be armed when ordered to.

I had no training from Jackson County on the Model 10 Smith and Wesson 38 or the Remington 870 Riot shotgun they’d issue me when we transported prisoners.

In retrospect that was a good thing. I remained a good Christian boy with all my hillbilly morals and notions of right and wrong.

Today modern police training takes moral, decent kids and turns them into killers perched on a wire edge.

When I guarded prisoners I always wondered if I could shoot anybody.

I’m afraid the guards today are selecting targets in advance.

“Today modern police training takes moral, decent kids and turns them into killers perched on a wire edge.”

Now that’s completely unfair and bullshit.

 

[Briar Lee]

“Today modern police training takes moral, decent kids and turns them into killers perched on a wire edge.”

Now that’s completely unfair and bullshit.

There will always be corrupt or foolish or cowardly law enforcement officers. There are over 700,000 full time officers in the USA. If 99% are good that means 7,000 are loose on the streets with a gun.

When I was in law enforcement Glocks were yet to be invented. Shotguns were issued only when there was a crowd that needed a reason to be on good behavior.

Our local range cooperates with law enforcement training.

Sometimes when we shoot skeet at night the police have live fire machine gun exercises lit by the headlights of their cruisers.

They are training to be soldiers, not peace officers.

And it drains away years of moral values they learned at home, school, and church.

We want the good guys to win gun fights with the bad guys.

But we don’t want the good guys shooting little kids with BB guns or women in parking lots.

Part of the problem is increased requirements for college degrees.

My mother would beg me, to come home to Humansville until September, instead of that nasty old jail.

And it was tempting.

But I served my time in jail, and I never forgot.

Of those we guarded, about 99% had just screwed up, or had horrible examples set for them growing up, or just took the wrong path.

1% were monsters.

 

[cynyr]

I've worked with jail officers and police officers for more than twenty years. The majority are clean, upstanding young men and women who respect their neighbor and uphold the law.

A tiny minority are venal, offensive thieves and hustlers who bring discredit upon the rest. They will lie, cheat on their wives, steal from the government, flat-out rob the public, and destroy the faith of the law-abiding citizen.

In other words, they are an accurate reflection of the public they serve.

 

[HeavyLeadBelly]

In Frankfort Kentucky (made famous to hillbilly singers by Tom T. Hall’s ballad I Flew Over Our House Last Night) the county Sheriff shot the local judge multiple times in chambers and killed him.

Xxx

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A judge in a rural Kentucky county was fatally shot in his courthouse chambers Thursday, and the local sheriff was charged with murder in the killing, police said.

The preliminary investigation indicates Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines shot District Judge Kevin Mullins multiple times following an argument inside the courthouse, according to Kentucky State Police. Mullins, who held the judgeship for 15 years, died at the scene, and Stines surrendered without incident.

The fatal shooting in Whitesburg sent shock waves through a tight-knit Appalachian town and county seat of government with about 1,700 residents located about 145 miles (235 kilometers) southeast of Lexington.

Xxxx

I’ve followed current events since I was two years old and Francis Gary Powers was shot down over Russia on a spy mission.

I can’t remember such a brazen act by any law enforcement officer against a judge.

If you believe in a death penalty, if it’s not imposed here, then when would you execute somebody?

A greater question is why?

I suspect we overtrain and desensitize our police forces.

They are peace officers, not soldiers.

If it was over a woman, then it’s maybe understandable.

But no nation can have the rule of law if the judges fear their sheriffs.

It was some unchecked aggression, man

 

[Briar Lee]

It was some unchecked aggression, man

The married, middle aged judge being with the man’s daughter fully explains the situation to me.

Why Tom T Hall used Frankfort is lost now, but Frankfort is the kind of place where a man is going to be six feet under if he “ruins” the High Sheriff (or any other man’s) little girl.

After I’d totaled three cars in rapid succession my mother arranged for me to have a date for New Year’s Eve 1977 with the daughter of the Sheriff of Polk County in the fourth car she let me buy, on the condition I take her out.

The girl was as gorgeous as her mother with no mileage or dents on her, and our mothers knew we’d both come home in the same condition we were sent out.

That judge ought to have known, to leave that young girl to eligible young boys,,,,or else.