Gov. Janet Mills is criticizing a decision by a judge to reduce the bail of a man involved in multiple fires and a deadly police shooting in Auburn.
Early Saturday morning, 43-year-old Leein Hinkley allegedly tried to break into his ex-girlfriend’s house in Auburn and started a fight with her significant other.
During the police search, the woman’s home and another house were set on fire.
Hinkley was found on a nearby rooftop with a firearm, and he was shot and killed by police.
Investigators later found human remains inside one of the houses that burned while police were still looking for that woman’s significant other.
Hinkley had been released from jail last week after paying a $1,500 bail that had been reduced multiple times over the previous few weeks.
According to the Sun Journal, Mills said she’s reviewed the facts in the case, saying she “strongly” disagrees with Judge Sarah Churchill’s ruling in the matter.
Hinkley, who was convicted on a domestic violence charge in 2011, was being held earlier this month after violating his probation. He also faced a new domestic violence charge.
After about 20 days behind bars and multiple court appearances, Churchill reduced Hinkley’s bail from $25,000 to $1,500. In her decision, Churchill said Hinkley did not have an attorney and had the right to one before reducing his bail.
Churchill cited Hinkley’s constitutional right to a lawyer. Nearly three weeks after his arrest, he still wasn’t assigned one.
But Mills, who appointed Churchill, said the judge had the power to appoint an attorney to the indigent defendant.
Earlier this week, the Maine Judicial Branch defended the judge’s decision, instead pointing to the lack of available attorneys in the state.
In a statement, it said in part:
“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 crisis of lack of counsel has been developing for years; it will not disappear overnight.”
