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JOHN HINCKLEY, WHO tried to assassinate president Ronald Reagan 35 years ago, is to be freed from a psychiatric hospital to live full-time with his mother, a federal judge ordered today.
Hinckley, who was declared not guilty of the attempted assassination by reason of insanity, said after shooting the president outside a Washington hotel that he wanted to kill Reagan to impress the actor Jodie Foster, with whom he became obsessed after viewing the film Taxi Driver.
The court order places dozens of detailed conditions on Hinckley’s “full-time convalescent leave” from St Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, including a ban on contact with Foster, but said they can be phased out after a year to 18 months if he continues to make progress.
US District Judge Paul Friedman wrote that Hinckley, 61, no longer poses a threat to himself or others.
He will be freed as soon as 5 August to live with his 90-year-old mother in her gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia.
The attack badly wounded three other men, including Reagan’s press secretary James Brady.
Following a two-month trial in 1982, a federal jury found Hinckley not guilty by reason of insanity. The widely criticised verdict led many states to tighten the laws on insanity defenses.
Since the 1990s, Hinckley has been permitted gradually longer supervised home visits with his mother, lately lasting up to 17 days. Secret Service agents have tracked him during each such foray.
Members of Reagan’s family have consistently opposed Hinckley’s release. Daughter Patti Reagan Davis wrote on her website in 2015:
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.
One thing troubling her, she said, was that while at St Elizabeths, Hinckley had written to mass murderers Ted Bundy and Charles Manson.
But Hinckley’s attorney Barry Levine has argued since 2003 that evaluations by the hospital’s officials showed that he no longer posed any threat.
The attempt on Reagan’s life sparked intense debate over gun violence and the treatment of the mentally ill. Brady, though left paralysed, became a leading gun-control advocate.
A medical examiner attributed Brady’s death in 2014 to the injuries received 33 years earlier, but no additional charges were filed against Hinckley.
The 1981 attack also badly wounded US Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy and local police officer Thomas Delahanty.
The conditions on Hinckley’s release include a ban on contact with survivors of any of the victims, as well as with Foster.
Hinckley must remain within 50 miles of his mother’s home, and cannot travel to any area where a current or former president, vice president or member of Congress is known to be.
He must return to St Elizabeths for monthly monitoring and must notify the Secret Service in advance about his intended route of travel.
He cannot post any writings or memorabilia on the Internet or display them in person without authorisation.
The detailed conditions even include a requirement for monthly music therapy sessions with a board-certified music therapist.
St Elizabeths, Hinckley’s home for most of the past 35 years, opened in 1855, the first federally run psychiatric hospital. Though it once housed as many as 8,000 patients – many of them indigent – the aging facility is being phased out and now holds only a few hundred.
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This is not new news. Employees and people in cork knew that this was coming down the line for the past 18mths. I know plenty that are planning on taking redundancy and are happy to do so as they are earning decent salaries, and many have been in the job a long time and are looking forward to nice fat redundancy cheques. Good luck to them I say.
So, not necessarily hard times you say, it might well be the end of hard times.
So , if as you say ”Employees and people in cork knew that this was coming down the line for the past 18mths.”… Why did the government not ”do ” something to prevent it ,or why was it not announced before the vote last Thursday ?
I will tell you why and that is the same reason Irish Rails job losses were not announce because the government knew it would have effected the way people would have subsequently voted. The same way they announced all the new jobs , which in fairnes will probably not come to anything til 2015.
If those people, in pfizer, get a good redundancy package I would take it too and run…
Susie, please don’t ask sensible questions. The Ffg/Labour auto-bots cannot process sensible questions. Their supreme leader is infallible.
Susie read the article. The patent on one of their main drugs is running out. They can’t afford to keep producing it against rivals who will make it on the cheap. What do you want the government to do exactly ?
Susie, Lipitor came off patent here. It is no longer viable for pfizer to manufacture it, as all the generics can do it now.
This brings the cost of a medicine down, albeit at the cost of those jobs.
Pharma is a huge industry in cork, especially in little island and ringaskiddy. Experienced pharmacutical workers are in demand down here. Those workers will get reducdancy packs, and shouldn’t have much difficulty picking up a new job in one of the many other tabletting plants nearby.
What do you think the govt should “do” in this situation? To me it looks like the timeline of normal pharma business.
Hopefully a new drug will be produced at the plant between now and next year and the jobs could be saved.
Good points Susie yet again.
Vote Yes for Jobs
And a no vote would have preserved the patents on drugs produced in Ireland? This news has absolutely nothing to do with any government or EU change to the business environment in Ireland.
Oh I know that – you see before I made up my mind on which way I was going to vote. Every single job announcement on this website was followed with the Vote yes for jobs when they had nothing to do with “any government or EU change to the business environment in Ireland”, so using the same illogical logic I say “Vote Yes for Jobs” now.
Terrible news…
While I voted no this has nothing to do with treaties just as a previous poster said the patents hav run out and it’s now an open market.
It may mean that with patents expiring the price will go down thus demand may rise in areas where they previously it was not bought.
No sign of Enda Kenny or Richard Bruton! I mean Enda was first to get his face in when a whole 40 new jobs were being announce a couple of weeks ago!
What can he do that’s beyond his power
Peter, according to your logic, its OK for Enda to do photo ops when jobs are announced, and its doubly OK for Enda to scurry away into some hole when Job losses are announced. Damn the FFg/Labour auto-bots are simply sickening. Its solidarity that the people want to see, not some moron who only shows up to get his Photo in the papers and news when job announcements are made, He is a lieing, obnoxious traitor, who wouldnt debate the referendum, but is happy to be seen anywhere that makes him look ‘good’.
Cal, local TD Simon Coveney has been out today to express his regret at the job losses.
The only thing this has to do with the treaty is the timing of the announcement, like with Dublin bus. Openness and transparency alright!
Good luck to all effected.
Generic = cheaper,so every cloud eh
This was always on the cards as the life cycle of Lipitor was coming to an end and as others have said it was known 18 months ago. It is also the reason why the pharma companies are looking towards biopharma as a solution to the problem of patent expiration due to the complexities of producing generic or bio-similar drugs even if the patent has finished.
One thing the health boards can do, is to make sure that the cheaper generic medicines, which will be prescribed, are manufactured in Ireland.
A sad day
Expect more of this, alot more. To all those in the HSE wishing to push down drug prices to ridiculous levels there will be consequences to your actions. Generic substitution and more importantly reference pricing at the dispensing end in no way guarantee that the generics the government pays for are actually manufactured here, probably the contrary in fact. This doesn’t even begin to address drug “shortages” which in actuality are simply manufacturers diverting supply to more profitable larger markets than Ireland.
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