“A federal judge has granted John Hinckley, Jr., the man who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981, full-time release from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he has been in treatment since the shooting. Judge Paul L. Friedman delivered the ruling Wednesday, granting him full time convalescent leave to begin no sooner than Aug. 5.” Hinckley, of course, also gravely wounded James Brady during the attempt on Reagan’s life, which gave rise to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Hinckley has been given controlled periods of release from custody for years now. Or as one so-called expert describes it,
“In terms of the management of insanity acquittees, generally, it is common to have this very carefully titrated doses of liberty approach, with gradual doses of freedom and a fairly tight monitoring system,” explained University of Virginia law professor Richard Bonnie, who specializes in mental health and criminal law. “That is the model.”
Jodie Foster was unavailable for comment.