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Mickey Stines Judge Recusal: Undisclosed Connection to Victim Revealed — FBI Breaks Down What Failed
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This week's Hidden Killers Live covered the Mickey Stines case — a recusal motion that's stalled everything and the systemic breakdown that let a sheriff in crisis keep his gun.
The defense filed a motion to recuse Special Judge Christopher Cohron after discovering video showing him seated inches from Judge Kevin Mullins at a Kentucky Judicial Commission on Mental Health meeting just seven days before Mullins was shot to death. Cohron never disclosed this connection. Defense attorneys Jeremy and Kerri Bartley argue this creates an appearance of bias in a case where Stines' mental state is the entire defense. They cite Cohron's rulings blocking psychiatric evaluation from the bond hearing. Now everything is frozen while we wait to see if Cohron steps aside or forces the defense to escalate to the Kentucky Supreme Court.
Former FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer joined us to examine the structural failures that allowed this tragedy. Court filings show Mickey Stines spiraled publicly in the days before the shooting — calling dead relatives on his phone, losing weight rapidly, displaying paranoia. His staff pushed him to see a doctor. The diagnosis was acute stress reaction. They sent him home with his badge, his gun, his authority untouched. Twenty-four hours later, Judge Mullins was shot nine times in his chambers.
Kentucky has no red flag law. An elected sheriff cannot be suspended by subordinates. There was no mechanism to disarm him. The civil lawsuit accuses employees of failing to warn Mullins. Their defense: Kentucky law imposed no duty to act. Stines has been held without bond for fifteen months. No trial date set.
#MickeyStines #JudgeKevinMullins #HKLive #ChristopherCohron #JenniferCoffindaffer #FBI #KentuckySheriff #MentalHealthCrisis #JudgeRecusal #WeekInReview
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