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Eight months after the deadliest mass shooting in Maine history occurred in Lewiston, another terrifying — and entirely preventable — violent rampage was visited upon the citizens of neighboring Auburn.
Saturday morning, 43-year-old Leein Hinkley was shot and killed on a rooftop by Maine State Police Tactical Team members after a prolonged and tense standoff, and a series of violent incidents around Russell Avenue in Auburn.
The tragedy began when a woman called the police at nearly 1 a.m. to report that Hinkley was breaking into her house, and that her significant other was fighting with him. Police soon arrived to find the home and another nearby on fire, and shots began to be fired at them.
Hinkley managed to escape the scene before later being located on a rooftop around 5:30 a.m. Ultimately, Hinkley — who was still armed with a handgun — was shot to death after being surrounded by police.
This mayhem represented a chilling echo of the Lewiston mass shooting, not only in the terrorizing of the Lewiston-Auburn community by a madman with a gun, but also in the bungling incompetence of the judicial system in Maine.
Hinkley had a long rap sheet, including many incidents of domestic violence and assault. He was being held in custody until last week on a probation violation, which ultimately stemmed from a prior conviction for domestic violence in 2011, and a recent arrest on the same charge. He was initially being held without bail.
Despite this, District Court Judge Sarah Churchill, citing a Sixth Amendment violation related to HInkley’s lack of access to a public attorney, decided to reduce his bail to $1,500 and agree to his release over the objections of the district attorney’s office. Hinkley had been waiting for a public defender and had not yet been able to obtain one.
Sunday, The Maine Fraternal Order of Police and the Maine State Troopers Association released a blistering statement, laying blame for the mayhem squarely at the feet of Churchill for allowing Hinkley back on the streets, despite being a danger to the community.
“Despite the severity of Hinkley’s prior criminal charges, a victim seeking help from the court, and opposition from prosecutors, Judge Churchill essentially let him off the hook,” read the joint release, which accused Churchill of “poor judgment.”
Maine’s judicial branch was not happy about the statement and rose to Churchill’s defense. In a press release sent by Barbara Cardone, a spokeswoman for the state courts, the judicial branch said that the judge had no choice in the case. “It is dangerous and short-sighted to blame the court for the horrific acts because it obscures the real nature of the problem: an insufficient number of attorneys willing to represent the rights of the accused,” the statement said.
As a civil libertarian, it is fairly easy to convince me to side with a judicial ruling that prioritizes constitutional protections of citizens, even when those protections are inconvenient and ultimately create major problems.
And yet, it is hard for me to understand why this judge decided to choose this defendant, in this moment to make a point about the murky constitutionality of defendants struggling to gain representation. This individual was extremely violent, with a prolonged and very recent history of violent behavior, particularly against women.
However reckless and irresponsible the decision is, the blame really belongs at the feet of lawmakers in Augusta, and the governor. For years, they have done far too little to fix Maine’s broken indigent defense system, allowing the problem to fester into an intolerable crisis.
As far back as 2015, then-Gov. Paul LePage recognized the problem and proposed the creation of a new public defender system. That proposal was defeated, only to be resurrected in 2017, and ultimately defeated again. Interestingly, Barbara Cardone was not only in the Legislature at the time, but was also on the Judiciary Committee and voted against the proposal.
Dithering inaction continued and as time went on the problem metastasized into a full-blown crisis. The sins of neglect by leaders in Augusta is even worse when you consider the absurd, record-breaking revenue the state has been collecting in the years since COVID, and how indiscriminately it has decided to spend that money on pet projects and fickle priorities imaginable.
Finally, Maine approved the creation of a public defender office this year, but it is too little, too late.
The problem that exists today will take years to undo, and it is the fault of our representatives in Augusta. They have spent years prioritizing their political wishlists and leaving the most important responsibilities of government in shambles. And that, more than any single criminal or any controversial decision by a judge, is really to blame for what just happened in Auburn.
