Hinckley, who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981, will be released no sooner than August 5 from the St. Elizabeth’s mental hospital in Washington, D.C., where he has been in treatment since the shooting, according to CBS News. Friedman also found that the preponderance of evidence on potential danger for others and/or Hinckley himself shows that “Mr. Hinckley presents no danger to himself or to others in the reasonable future”. He will be required to live full-time with his mother in Williamsburg, Virginia, for at least one year.
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Hinckley said after the attack outside a Washington hotel that he wanted to kill Reagan to impress the actor Jodie Foster, with whom he became obsessed after seeing her in the movie “Taxi Driver“.
He was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982 for the attack which wounded Mr Reagan in the chest.
A year ago, the court allowed him to spend 17 days a month at his parent’s home in Virginia. “Hinckley also will not be permitted to “knowingly travel” to areas where the current president or members or Congress are present”.
Prosecutors, however, have argued against increased freedoms for Hinckley, saying he has a history of being deceptive and once wrote in a 1987 journal entry that psychiatrists would “never know the true John Hinckley”.
Hinckley was a “profoundly troubled 25-year-old young man” when he shot Reagan, but his mental illnesses – major depression and psychotic disorder – have been in remission for more than 27 years, Friedman wrote. After having received the “maximum benefits possible in the in-patient setting” – a phrase sure to rankle the victims and their families – Friedman says it’s time to let Hinckley out on supervised “convalescent leave”. In late 2003, the judge allowed Hinckley to begin leaving the hospital for day visits with his parents in the Washington area. Reagan was hit and almost died from the gunshot wound.
While outside the hospital, Hinckley has had to comply with a series of restrictions, and some of those will continue. “When my father was lying in a hospital bed recovering from the gunshots that almost killed him, he said, ‘I know my ability to heal depends on my willingness to forgive John Hinckley.’ I too believe in forgiveness”. He will have to attend individual and group therapy sessions and is barred from talking to the media. The Secret Service also periodically follows him.
Wednesday’s order allows Hinckley to live full-time in Williamsburg, but still under certain restrictions.
According to court records and testimony at a hearing on the issue of his release, he has spent time volunteering at a church as well as a local mental hospital.
His press secretary James Brady was shot in the head, suffered brain damage and used a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
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He also has said he wants to “fit in” and be “a good citizen”.
