On Thursday, the attorney representing John W. Hinckley Jr. said his client will leave St. Elizabeths Hospital, a Washington psychiatric hospital, to live full-time with his mother in Virginia on Sept. 10. Hinckley Jr. wounded President Ronald Reagan in an assassination attempt in 1981 and left press secretary James Brady so severely wounded that his death in 2014 was retroactively ruled a homicide.
Hinckley’s attorney, Barry Levine, said, that his client’s release was “a milestone” because Hinckley and his family efforts succeeded to “responsibly deal with disease.” He added, “People of goodwill should celebrate his achievement and success … I think he will be a citizen about whom we can all be proud.”
Judge Paul L. Friedman ruled in July that Hinckley Jr., 61, was not a danger to himself or to others and could move to his other’s home on August 5.
Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity after the assassination attempt, which he stated was executed to impress actress Jodie Foster. Friedman has allowed Hinckley to spend time at his other’s home before; in the past two years or so he has spent 17 days a month at his mother’s home.
Friedman ruled Hinckley will have to live with his other for a year, after that he can live on his own, but must find at least part-time employment or volunteer work as well as join individual and group therapy.
Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis, as well as Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty,the two officers injured in the shooting, said they didn’t approve of the judge’s decision but were resigned to it.
In 2014, when Brady’s death was ruled a homicide, Levine expressed confidence that Hinckley would not be prosecuted again, this time for Brady’s murder. He said, “The prosecution will face insurmountable legal barriers to any prosecution. It ought to be self-evident. Is there any conceivable theory of facts that would differ from the facts that applied to the prosecution in 1982? Is there something new or different other than the fact that Brady died? [Hinckley] was found not guilty of the assault. How could he be found guilty of the more serious charge?”
After the shooting attempt, Brady and his wife Sarah, became leading advocates of gun control. Brady underwent two surgeries to stop spinal fluid from leaking from his cranial cavity, was operated on for a pulmonary embolism, and suffered epileptic seizures, pneumonia and persistent fevers.