A judge ruled in favor of the handler of a comfort dog who died in a hot car in Bangor.
Penobscot County Judge Bruce Mallonee found Brodie Hinckley not responsible for the death of Baxter, a 3-year-old chocolate Labrador retriever. He had been charged with a civil violation of animal cruelty after Baxter, a comfort dog, died in Hinckley’s hot car on May 28, 2025 at the Bangor Regional Communications Center.
Baxter, a 3-year-old chocolate Labrador retriever, was supposed to provide comfort to Maine’s emergency dispatchers. Hinckley was then the emergency communications director for the Maine Department of Public Safety Communications.
Hinckley was accused of confining Baxter to an enclosed space in extreme heat, under Maine’s cruelty to animals law. Baxter spent more than four hours in the car that day without being checked on.
“It’s difficult for me to read [the subsection of law] as having no intent,” Mallonee said.
It appears Hinckley did not know the car had stopped running and was creating extreme heat, Mallonee said. There is no explanation for why the car stopped running and Mallonee said he cannot find that there was intent.
Hinckley resigned in October, in part because of death threats he and his family were receiving and because Bangor became a hostile work environment, he testified.
“What an awful thing to threaten a person with death because he had an accident and the animal died,” Mallonee said. “What an awful thing to torment his family. What an awful thing social media can be, and I’m just frankly, sir, very sorry that you have had to endure that.”
It’s unclear why the car was not running when Hinckley returned but the mystery of why the car was not on is not relevant to the case, because intent is not needed to prove the civil violation, Penobscot County Assistant District Attorney Anya Sproule said.
It doesn’t matter if Hinckley did or didn’t check on Baxter, as there wasn’t extreme heat in the car when he left the dog, his defense attorney Walt McKee said. Hinckley had controlled the climate of the car and testified that he was sure he had done so.
McKee declined to comment after the trial.
Hinckley arrived at the center around 9 a.m. that day and put Baxter in the car around 9:30 a.m. Staff had complained that the dog had been gassy, multiple witnesses testified. Baxter had pooped on the floor of the dispatch center as well that morning, they testified.
Baxter spent more than four hours in the car, a hybrid Ford Interceptor, that day, according to testimony. It was not the first time Baxter had been in the car for four hours or more, Hinckley testified. The dog had spent that amount of time in the car just a few weeks earlier.
The dog loved his kennel and was trained to be in it for hours at a time, including overnight, Hinckley testified.
When Hinckley left the center shortly before 2 p.m. that day, his key fob did not work to unlock the car. After he manually unlocked the door, he said it felt warm in the car and then he noticed Baxter was not moving, Hinckley testified.
Temperatures reached 82 degrees Fahrenheit in Bangor that day.
There were no safeguards in place to know if there was an issue with the vehicle, Hinckley said. He said he didn’t feel the need to check on Baxter because he had never done it before and had never had an issue before.
Maine State Police, which shares the building, documented the scene, Lt. Michael Johnston testified. He added that the state police chain of command decided to have Baxter’s body taken to a crematorium, driven in Hinckley’s car.
The cause of death was likely connected to Baxter being in the hot car, Sproule said. A necropsy, an animal autopsy, would not have made a difference in the case because there was no disagreement about Baxter’s likely cause of death, Sproule said.
State investigator, William Muggle, was not brought into the case until about June 18, he testified. Muggle was a humane agent with the state’s Animal Welfare Program, part of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.
Video footage at the building deletes after seven days so it was gone by the time Muggle was brought in, he testified. The investigation took just under a month, Muggle said.