Hinckley already spends 17 days each month with his mother in the Kingsmill resort community in Williamsburg, something that bothers his neighbor Joe Mann.
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But Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis, expressed some resignation, blogging that she was “not surprised by this latest development, but my heart is sickened”. “If John Hinckley is haunted by anything, I think it’s that he didn’t succeed in his mission to assassinate the President”. “I hope the doctors are right when they say that John Hinckley isn’t a danger to anyone but something in me feels they are wrong”, she wrote on her website a year ago.
Hinckley, now 61, shot Reagan and three other people in a failed assassination attempt on March 30, 1981, while the president was walking out of the Washington Hilton.
“The reason I’m going ahead with this attempt now is I can not wait any longer to impress you”, he wrote.
In addition to wounding Reagan, Hinckley shot press secretary James Brady, a U.S. Secret Service agent and a local police officer.
Reagan was hit in the chest and was hospitalized for 12 days.
After his death in 2014 at the age of 73, an autopsy ruled Brady’s his cause of death to be homicide.
“The court finds by the preponderance of the evidence that Mr Hinckley will not be a danger to himself or to others if released on full-time convalescent leave to Williamsburg under the conditions proposed”. Doctors report his depression and psychosis are in full remission.
John Hinckley Jr. departs from the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. District Court building in Washington, November 18, 2003.
Hinckley has been a psychiatric patient at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., for decades. The Friedman made a decision to end Hinckley’s institutionalization after determining that he no longer poses a danger to himself or others and that he has “displayed no symptoms of active mental illness, exhibited no violent behavior [and] shown no interest in weapons”.
Early on in his hospital stay, Hinckley was involved in several inauspicious activities, including an exchange of letters with serial killers Ted Bundy and Charles Manson.
Prosecutors had consistently opposed Hinckley’s efforts to gain more freedom, citing what they called a history of deceptive behavior. He also has applied for jobs at Starbucks and Subway, without success, saying he was dismayed by having the Secret Service tail him as he sought employment.
Hinckley can not be released any earlier than August 5.
Despite the restrictions, life in Williamsburg will likely be busy for Hinckley.
He must undergo treatment at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital no less than once a month.
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“Thousands of times every day, judges across this country attempt the hard, daunting task of predicting with confidence what a human being may do in the future.it is fair to say the lives of few people have been scrutinized with the care and detail that John Hinckley’s has”, Friedman wrote.
