District Judge Kevin Mullins was shot and killed in his chambers after an argument, police say.

A Kentucky sheriff has been arrested after fatally shooting a judge in his chambers, police say.

District Judge Kevin Mullins died at the scene after being shot multiple times in the Letcher County Courthouse, Kentucky State Police said.

Letcher County Sheriff Shawn Stines, 43, has been charged with one count of first-degree murder.

The shooting happened on Thursday after an argument inside the court, police said, but they have not yet revealed a motive.

  • KeraKali@lemmy.world
    120·
    3 months ago

    I was seriously hoping that the title was poorly worded and a sheriff did not, in fact, murder a judge inside a courthouse. But what the actual fuck.

      • microphone900@lemmy.ml
        24·
        3 months ago

        I don’t have Facebook but I did come across this

        According to The Associated Press, Stines gave a deposition Monday in a federal lawsuit stemming from allegations that a now-former deputy sheriff forced a woman to have sex with him in Mullins’ chambers for six months, in exchange for keeping the woman out of jail. He pleaded guilty to rape and other charges earlier this year, The Mountain Eagle reported.

        Which is so messed up.

        Also, related to that deputy

        She also alleged that a male relative of Fields, who he introduced to her, also coerced her to have sex with him because he “had pull with the court.” She said that she talked to Fields on Facebook Messenger, but the other man never sent her any messages. He wasn’t charged because she had no proof.

        Adkins said she believes that man is still doing to same thing to other women because she went to court for a hearing on a charge of driving under the influence and saw him sitting in the gallery whispering to another female defendant with his arm around her.

        “He was right there in the courtroom, asking her to go out to dinner with him,” she said. “I felt physically sick.”

        I don’t know what the hell is going on out there, but holy crap they have a lot of problems they need to address.

      • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
        882·
        3 months ago

        Well, I can’t blame him if she is underage. If that is the case, sheriff did his duty as a father and an officer of the law in order to uphold the law and do right by his kid, so long as the judge did violate the sheriff’s child.

        Woodchipper feet-first for the lot of them, judicial firearm use is too kind.

        • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
          392·
          3 months ago

          I’m sorry, no. No, no, no.

          Don’t care what the reason is, we don’t do vigilantism. If someone diddles your daughter it’s not your fatherly duty to murder and get jailed. It’s your fatherly duty to ensure the fucker is locked up by law and that your daughter will be taken care of, THAT is your duty.

          Leave vigilantism to Hollywood movies

          • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
            93·
            3 months ago

            When immoral crimes go unpunished due to a corrupt legal system, violence often follows. That judge isn’t the first, nor will be the last, to learn that claiming to be “above the law” offers no real protection. A fair and functional legal system is essential for a less violent society. When justice isn’t applied equally, violence rises. Laws don’t prevent violence—they only punish it afterward. I imagine many people’s last words were some version of “too bad, because that’s illegal.”

          • Hawk@lemmynsfw.com
            52·
            3 months ago

            Based on my experience with how the law deals with victims of child sexual assault, I think all we have is vigilantism.

            This would happen multiple times before it’s stopped and this is only challenged by the power position of the assailant.

            It’s not great, but, in my experience, sexual assault is not taken very seriously, unfortunately.

            • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
              6·
              3 months ago

              I’m sorry but o have to call bullshit here

              Child abuse and sexual assault are both taken VERY seriously by law enforcement and justice systems world wide. The thing though is that at least here in the west we have this pesky principle of being innocent until proven guilty, which is a good thing ™.

              It basically makes.sure that there is a preference of criminals not being convicted over innocents being in jail. Again this is a good thing.

              It does cause, however, that sometimes criminals go free, and they they do, it’s with good reason; by law they are innocent, still.

              Now you might think: well, then let’s go vigilantism on his ass, right? No. If you kill this guy or girl extrajudicially, you are simply murdering someone, and you deserve to be jailed, the end. It sucks that not all rapists can be jailed but that means that it can’t be proven, and that is the point with rape: a lot of times it’s a he said-she said. If she claims it was against her will, he says that she contented, who do you believe? If a child claims that he or she was abused for a long time, we won’t always be able to prove it either.

              It’s not as simple as saying that the law doesn’t care.

              • Hawk@lemmynsfw.com
                11·
                3 months ago

                They are not taken seriously by law enforcement. They are advertised to be taken seriously.

                It’s awful but that’s the way it is. If your experience working with a victim in your jurisdiction has been a positive one I’m really glad to hear that and I would love to know what things made it work so we’ll.

                In my experience supporting a victim, there’s no ramifications for the perpetrator, no appetite for investigation and no support for the victim outside the private system (the support hotlines are particularly useless).

                Police simply are not there to protect and support victims of personal violence offences.

                You can call bullshit all you want, but this is my lived experience in a western country and I have nothing to gain by being deceptive 🤷.

        • jonne@infosec.pub
          32·
          3 months ago

          Out of all people you’d expect a sheriff to be able to navigate the legal system to get the guy locked up without landing in prison himself. Provided this is real, obviously.

          • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
            111·
            3 months ago

            Seriously, just pull them over and shoot them for going for a gun. It’s honestly harder for a cop to get in trouble for shooting someone.

        • FanBlade@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
          17·
          3 months ago

          I see what you’re saying but I do think it’s important to mention his duty as a father is to be there for his kid and extrajudicial “justice” means this father will be in jail causing further trauma for his kid and severely restrict his ability to be a father.

        • BrundleFly2077@sh.itjust.works
          192·
          3 months ago

          I can respect the commitment to the bit that it must have taken to delete criticalthinking.ini entirely from your brain, but I can’t bring myself to respect even an iota of what it’s turned you into. You broke yourself, dude.

        • madjo@feddit.nlEnglish
          2·
          3 months ago

          The duty of a sheriff would have been to arrest the SoB, and not to fatally shoot him.