Hinckley Allowed Unsupervised Leaves

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From washingtonpost.com:

 

Court Grants Hinckley Unsupervised Visits

Reagan's Assailant Must Still Be Accompanied by Parents

By Carol Leonnig

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, December 17, 2003; 3:48 PM

 

 

Presidential assailant John W. Hinckley Jr. was given a court's permission today to leave St. Elizabeths Hospital for a series of unchaperoned visits with his parents, marking the first time he would be released from the facility without the staff's supervision.

 

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman set numerous conditions on the outings. Among other things, Hinckley is not permitted to leave his parents, John and Jo Ann, at any time while he is away from the hospital, and the first outings must be in the Washington area. Those visits could take place in two weeks unless prosecutors seek to delay them through an appeal.

 

Friedman's ruling came after a hearing last month in which psychiatrists testified that Hinckley's condition has dramatically improved since March 1981, when he shot President Reagan and three others outside the Washington Hilton Hotel. Hinckley has been confined to St. Elizabeths since 1982, when a jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity.

 

Prosecutors fought Hinckley's bid to leave the hospital without an escort, saying they believe he remains a danger. But Hinckley's attorney and doctors said that he has successfully ventured outside the hospital in recent years on supervised trips to bowling alleys, shopping centers, restaurants, parks and other places, and that they anticipated no problems.

 

The judge is requiring advance notice of any outings, including a full itinerary. The Secret Service, which continues to monitor Hinckley, would be informed of any trips and would be free to keep track of him. Hinckley's parents, who live in the Williamsburg area, have asked that he be allowed to eventually go on overnight outings to their home. Friedman's ruling sets the first steps in such a process, in which the hospital will continually chart Hinckley's progress.

 

Attorneys for Hinckley had argued at the hearing that the government has no evidence that the presidential assailant would pose a risk to the public if he took short unsupervised trips outside the confines of his psychiatric hospital and said prosecutors were raising a "specter of possible horrors."

 

Top officials at St. Elizabeths Hospital testified that they see no chance of Hinckley hurting anyone on such trips to see his parents. Those views echoed other psychiatrists who examined Hinckley and deemed him ready to leave the Southeast Washington psychiatric facility for a series of unsupervised family visits.

 

But government prosecutors insisted that the mental instability that spurred Hinckley to try to assassinate Reagan could reappear. They also questioned whether psychiatric experts, who unanimously told the court that Hinckley's psychotic delusions have been in remission for more than a decade, are too partial to the longtime St. Elizabeths Hospital patient. In addition, prosecutors said they doubted whether Hinckley's aging parents are physically capable of controlling their son if he became violent.

 

Reagan's family expressed concern about the prospect of Hinckley venturing out unsupervised, and Sarah Brady, whose husband, press secretary James Brady, also was shot, recently wrote to the judge opposing Hinckley's request.

 

On March 30, 1981, as Reagan left the Washington Hilton after a speech, Hinckley opened fire, wounding the president, Brady and two law enforcement officers.

 

Unsupervised visits would be another step in a series of liberties Hinckley has won, part of a continuum that he hopes could ultimately lead to his release. In 1999, Hinckley won a lengthy legal battle and got a court order allowing him to take supervised trips away from the hospital. He has since made hundreds of trips to bowling alleys, bookstores, restaurants and even the National Theatre without incident.

 

Hinckley's legal team had hoped that they might have a decision earlier so he could be with his family for Thanksgiving. In early December, Barry Wm. Levine asked the judge for a decision in time for Hinckley to spend Christmas with his parents.

 

"I make no promises," Friedman said at the time.

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Here is what troubles me: the symptoms of his illness may reappear, yet because he went to bowling alleys and bookstores without incedent he is allowed to get leave without state supervision, and may be set free soon?

 

Until there is a cure for their disorders, keep mental patients behind bars. Even David Berkowitz said at his parole that it is not safe to let him out because his mental problems could reappear.

 

Too bad not everyone with a violent mental disorder can take responsibility like that.