Mason homicide case officially dismissed once and for all

A homicide case against an Oak Ridge man that was thrown out by the Kentucky Court of Appeals late last month is officially over.

Monday afternoon, Whitley Circuit Judge Paul Winchester agreed to grant a defense request to dismiss the case against Keith Mason with prejudice meaning that it can’t be brought again.

“Given the faces of this case, it has been presented twice (to the grand jury) … I think there needs to be a final resolution,” Winchester said in making his ruling.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Stephens had asked for the case to be dismissed without prejudice meaning that it could be potentially filed again.

Mason was not in court for Monday’s hearing.

His attorney, Ronald Bowling, waived his presence for Monday’s hearing.

On Jan. 27, the Kentucky Court of Appeals threw out Mason’s homicide case finding that Commonwealth’s Attorney Allen Trimble had committed “prosecutorial misconduct” in the case.

The main issue in the appeal was legal advice that Trimble gave to the grand jury during the investigating detective’s testimony in the case of Mason, who shot and killed his former stepfather, Robert “Bobby” Vanover, in 2012.

“It appears the trial prosecutor knowingly and intentionally interjected this erroneous legal advice in the middle of the detective’s testimony solely because the detective’s testimony had just informed the jury that they would have to decide if the killing was justified,” judges wrote in the opinion.

“It is noteworthy that the jury did not initially ask the Commonwealth for legal advice on self-protection. Additionally, the one follow-up question the jurors had to the Commonwealth’s erroneous legal advice resulted in the Commonwealth dispensing additional, erroneous advice. Thus, it appears the misadvice was knowingly and intentionally done.”

Justices wrote that even if they were to assume the prosecutor believed the legal advice was correct and was not knowingly and intentionally misleading the grand jury, the error would still arise to a flagrant abuse.

Trimble took full responsibility for the error.

“I made a mistake in quoting the law. They have changed the law since I have been commonwealth attorney and I made a mistake. I own it. I admit that I made a mistake. It was unintentional. It is just the way it is,” Trimble said.
“One of the biggest mistakes that a lawyer makes is to start quoting the law when he doesn’t have it in front of him. A lot of times a grand jury will ask you a question that it would take 10 pages of legal literacy to explain to them.”

Original case

The case involves Mason, who shot and killed Vanover, 60, his former stepfather, on Jan. 20, 2012, in a public roadway adjacent to property that Mason’s family owned.

Mason’s mother and Vanover divorced more than 20 years prior to the shooting.

Mason has never disputed shooting Vanover to death on the remote roadway in far western Whitley County only about 300 yards from the Tennessee state line, and has always claimed that he shot Vanover in self-defense.

Vanover’s son, Kevin Vanover, was staying on his mother’s property and Bobby Vanover was there visiting him.

Mason told Bobby Vanover that he wasn’t supposed to be on the property.

When the confrontation started Bobby Vanover reportedly told Keith Mason that even though Mason was half his age, he would whip him all over the road and then he struck Mason with a gazing blow to his lip, police testified.

After being struck, Keith Mason fired multiple shots striking Vanover in the chin, the upper chest area near the neck and in the side.

Vanover wasn’t armed with a gun, but police did find his mag flashlight at the crime scene near his body.

After the shooting, Mason was charged with murder in Vanover’s death and spent 43 days in the Whitley County Detention Center before a grand jury issued “no true bill” or no indictment against him.

After the case was presented to a grand jury a second time in July 2012, the grand jury returned a second-degree manslaughter indictment against Mason.

During subsequent legal proceedings in circuit court, Mason unsuccessfully tried to get the indictment dismissed arguing that prosecutorial misconduct had occurred in the grand jury, and he also unsuccessfully tried to get it dismissed claiming he had a self-protection claim.

Winchester denied those motions noting there was “probably a legitimate, very legitimate issue of self-defense, but I think that’s facts for a jury to hear.”

After those motions were denied, Vanover entered a guilty plea to second-degree manslaughter in July 2014, but the plea allowed him to appeal the case based in part of the self-defense law passed by the Kentucky General Assembly in 2006.