Reagan Shooter Finds Rejection, Indifference in Future Home
Photo Credit: Military
He takes long walks along tree-lined paths, plays guitar and paints, grabs fast food at Wendy’s. He drives around town in a silver Toyota Avalon, a car that wouldn’t attract a second glance. Often, as if to avoid detection, he puts on a hat or visor before going out.
These days, John Hinckley Jr. lives much of the year like any average Joe: shopping, eating out, watching movies at a local Regal Cinemas.
Hinckley was just 25 when he shot President Ronald Reagan and three others in 1981, and when jurors found him not guilty by reason of insanity they said he needed treatment, not a lifetime in confinement. The verdict left open the possibility that he would one day live outside a mental hospital.
For the past year, under a judge’s order, Hinckley has spent 17 days a month at his mother’s home in Williamsburg, a small southeastern Virginia city known for its colonial roots. Freedom has come in stages and with strict requirements: meeting regularly while in town with both a psychiatrist and a therapist, getting a volunteer job. It has all been part of a lengthy process meant to reintegrate Hinckley, now nearing 60, back into society. (Read more from “Reagan Shooter Finds Rejection, Indifference in Future Home” HERE)
____________________________________________________________
Hinckley not Charged with Murder for Brady’s Recent Death
By Travis Reilly. Medical examiners attributed the former Press Secretary’s August death to gunshot wounds incurred during the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981, but prosecutors will not charge Hinckley with the homicide since the courts have previously deemed him insane.
“Hinckley would be entitled to a directed verdict that he was not guilty of the murder of Mr. Brady by reason of insanity,” wrote Ronald C. Machen, U.S. District Attorney for Washington D.C., in a statement. “Furthermore, a homicide prosecution would be precluded by the common law ‘year-and-a-day rule,’ in effect at the time. (Read more from this story HERE)
Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.
