WHITESBURG, Ky. — Attorneys for the former Letcher County sheriff accused of murdering a district judge last year say the case should be tossed out, due to alleged mishandling of the grand jury process.

Former Sheriff Shawn Mickey Stines is charged with a single count of aggravated murder for shooting and killing District Judge Kevin Mullins in the judge’s chambers Sept. 19. Stines has already indicated he plans to seek an insanity defense if the case goes to trial, but now his lawyers say the indictment should be dismissed.

Their motion says the grand jury process was flawed on two grounds.

First, the attorneys say records of grand jury proceedings indicate there was an initial meeting of the grand jury to discuss the case which was not recorded, as required by Kentucky Rules of Criminal Procedure. Those rules explicitly state that failure to record grand jury proceedings shall be grounds for dismissal of an indictment.

Secondly, the motion claims grand jurors had sought mental health information that had come to light in a civil case against former sheriff’s detective Ben Fields, but were not given answers.

Fields was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of third-degree rape, third-degree sodomy, tampering with a prisoner monitoring device and perjury. He admitted to using his position to pressure a prisoner to have sex with him in Mullins’ office, among other places.

The motion argues that prosecutors and witnesses withheld information that could have resulted in the grand jury coming to a different conclusion about what charge Stines should face or whether he should be indicted at all.

The motion asks for the judge to set an evidentiary hearing to discuss the matters, with the goal of dismissing the indictment. No hearings have yet been set and prosecutors have not yet responded to the motion.