CRIMINAL: Drinking and defending Mix in two high profile criminal trials

Drinking and defending do mix as Herald Leader story remarks on the drunk defense of Melbourne Mills to avoid a conviction and James Barnett used it to avoid the chair.  Both defenses prevailed.

Drunk defense' works in two big cases

It was a defense that drew snickers from lawyers around Lexington.

Melbourne Mills Jr., his lawyers argued in his high-profile trial, was too drunk to know what was going on when two other lawyers allegedly pilfered millions of dollars from their clients in a diet-drug lawsuit settlement.

Yet Mills ultimately had the last laugh when a jury acquitted him on July 1 on conspiracy to commit wire fraud charges.

This week, another defendant in a high-profile Kentucky case had (partial) success with an intoxication defense. Jamie Barnett avoided the death penalty Wednesday when jurors found that he murdered Clay City Police Chief Randy Lacy .wantonly. rather than .intentionally.. Barnett was drunk and high at the time of the shooting.