The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute issued a press release in reaction to the release of John Hinckley, Jr., who attempted to assassinate President Reagan in 1981.
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Hinckley, 61, will be sent to live with his mother in Williamsburg, Virginia, and must carry a Global Positioning System enabled phone whenever he is away from his mother’s home, but no tracking devices will be installed in his cars.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman of Washington granted the leave, which will begin as early as August 5, according to court documents, and set the monitoring conditions.
Brady was left wheelchair-bound and with brain damage after he was shot in the head. When Ronald Reagan was elected president, he became Hinckley’s new stalking-interest in the obsessive man’s misguided efforts to impress Jodie Foster.
If Hinckley adheres to all restrictions, they could begin to be phased out after 12 to 18 months, removing him from court control for the first time since he was confined to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital after the March 30, 1981, shooting, according to the order.
Hinckley has gradually received permission to leave the hospital for periods of time over the years.
A federal judge, Judge Paul L. Friedman, is allowing Hinckley to leave a government psychiatric hospital.
One thing troubling her, she said, was that while at St. Elizabeths, Hinckley had written to the mass murderers Ted Bundy and Charles Manson.
Doctors have said for many years that Hinckley’s mental illness was in remission, and Friedman concurred in his ruling.
(AP Photo/Steve Helber). Williamsburg Va. resident and retired NASA manager, Tom Campbell, gestures as he speaks about the impending full time release of John Hinckley outside a shopping area in Williamsburg, Va., Wednesday, July 27, 2016.
And since 2006, Hinckley has completed more than 80 unsupervised visits to Williamsburg, the judge said.
Reports suggest Foster’s former stalker has been spending 17 days per month living at his mother Jo Ann’s Williamsburg, Virginia home since 2013.
The order by Judge Paul Friedman can not be appealed and police says that unless he violates the conditions of his leave, he does not need to come back to the hospital.
He’s also barred from contacting the family of James Brady, who died in 2014 as a result of his injury in the shooting, Timothy McCarthy and Thomas Delahanty, who were also injured in the shooting, and Jeanette Wick, a hospital employee who he reportedly stalked in the 90s.
Reagan died in 2004 at age 93.
“It is fair to say that the lives of few people have been scrutinized with the care and detail that John Hinckley’s has been”.
Restrictions, including a ban on talking to the media, will remain in place.
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Levine said the voluminous court record demonstrates Hinckley is not a threat to anyone.
