The Secret Service man who took a bullet during the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan says he hopes a federal judge is right that John Hinckley is no longer a threat and can be released to live with his mother.
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It comes after a federal judge ruled that John Hinckley Jr. was no longer a danger to himself or others.
The release came with a variety of conditions and restrictions that, if met, could ultimately lead Hinckley to be removed from court supervision for the first time since he shot and almost killed Reagan, Press Secretary Jim Brady, Secret Service Agent Tim McCarthy and D.C. police officer Thomas Delahanty outside the Washington Hilton on March 30, 1981.
He could be freed, as early as August 5, to live full-time with his 90-year old mother in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Hinckley has already been staying at his mother’s home in a gated community with a golf course during monthly furlough visits.
Hinckley was 25 in 1981 when he opened fire outside the Washington Hilton.
He will have to live with his mother for a year. Reagan died in 2004. “One never knows what a mentally ill person will do”. While the requirements focus mostly on continued mental health treatment, Hinckley’s lawyer had been arguing for minimal conditions to make it less likely he will be found in non-compliance. Hinckley’s father died in 2008.
He must live with his mother in Williamsburg for the first-year of his full-time release and after that, following an assessment by his team, he may reside alone or with roommates within a 30 mile radius of Williamsburg.
Hinckley’s mother lives in Williamsburg, about 210km south of Washington. Doctors now believe he has been cured of his mental illness. His hobbies include painting and playing the guitar and he has recently developed an interest in photography.
His wife, Mary Margaret Campbell, added: “I don’t think a lot of these mental illness issues go away”.
Barry Levine said in a statement Wednesday that Hinckley is “profoundly sorry for what he did 35 years ago”.
“In terms of the management of insanity acquittees, generally, it is common to have this very carefully titrated doses of liberty approach, with gradual doses of freedom and a fairly tight monitoring system”, explained University of Virginia law professor Richard Bonnie, who specializes in mental health and criminal law. According to court records, he has said it was hard for him to ask for jobs at Starbucks and Subway while being followed by the Secret Service: “It made me feel awkward and uncomfortable”.
Craig Shirley is the author of two critically praised best-sellers about Ronald Reagan, “Rendezvous with Destiny” and “Reagan’s Revolution”, as well as the New York Times best-selling book, “December 1941”.
McCarthy spent 22 years with the Secret Service.
But he said he also enjoyed meeting people outside St. Elizabeths, noting of his group therapy sessions: “It’s really refreshing to be in a group with people who aren’t completely out of their minds”.
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Prosecutors had consistently opposed Hinckley’s efforts to gain more freedom, citing what they called a history of deceptive behavior.
