The verdict of "not
guilty" for
reason
of insanity in the 1982 trial of John
Hinckley,
Jr. for his attempted assassination of President
Ronald
Reagan
stunned and outraged many Americans. An ABC News
poll taken the
day
after the verdict showed 83% of those polled thought
"justice was not
done"
in the Hinckley case. Some people--without much
evidence--attributed
the verdict to an anti-Reagan bias on the part the
Washington, D. C.
jury
of eleven blacks and one white. Many more
people, however, blamed
a legal system that they claimed made it too easy for
juries to return
"not guilty" verdicts in insanity cases--despite the
fact that such
pleas
were made in only 2% of felony cases and failed over
75% of the
time.
Public pressure resulting from the Hinckley verdict
spurred Congress
and
most states into enacting major
reforms of laws governing the use of the insanity
defense.
The Hinckley trial highlights
the
difficulty of
a system that forces jurors to label a defendant
either "sane" or
"insane"
when the defendant may in fact be close to the
middle on a spectrum
ranging
from Star Trek's Mr. Spock to the person who
strangles his wife
thinking
that he's squeezing a grapefruit. Any
objective evaluation of
John
Hinckley's mental condition shows him to be a
troubled young man--not,
as one prosecution witness described him, "a normal,
All-American boy."
But how troubled? The prosecution contended
that Hinckley
suffered
only from "personality disorders" of the type
affecting five to ten
percent
of the population, whereas the defense saw the same
evidence as
demonstrating
Hinckley's serious mental illness.
The Hinckley trial, perhaps
better
than any other
famous trial, reveals the difficulty of ascertaining
what exactly is
going
on in the head of another human being--and then in
using that imperfect
knowledge to answer a legal question that reduces
complex and changing
mental states to two oversimplified categories.
THE TROUBLED LIFE OF JOHN
HINCKLEY
The youngest of three children
born to
a workaholic
oil executive and an agoraphobic stay-at-home
mother, John Hinckley
from
an early age was clingy and very dependent upon his
mother.
Reviewing Breaking
Points, JoAnn and Jack Hinckley's book about
their coming to terms
with their son's mental illness, Laura Obolensky
writes--too
critically,
perhaps--in The New Republic of life inside
the affectless
Hinckley
home:
Perhaps
it is
fear of what
lies outside that makes the interior of the family
so rigid and
subdued,
like life in a well-run bunker. The world of
the Hinckleys was
the
rootless, middle-class Sunbelt culture that
nurtures pro-family values,
Christian fundamentalism, and occasional mass
murderers. Families
move frequently, but without compromising their
parochialism.
Everywhere,
people are white, Christian, Republican (JoAnn
explains John's
egregious
prejudices by saying he had "never been around
people of other races.")
Somewhere outside there are malign
elements--minority groups, rock
musicians,
big government, and the cynical, Godless
cosmopolites who dominate the
media. Mothers in this culture do not lavish
attention on their
children,
but on their furniture.
Hinckley drifted aimlessly through
two
years of college
at Texas Tech, in Lubbock, playing his guitar,
listening to music, and
watching television. In the spring of 1976, he
dropped out of
school
and headed for Hollywood, where he hoped--despite a
lack of musical
education--to
make it as a songwriter.
While in Hollywood Hinckley
first
viewed a movie,Taxi
Driver, that seemed to give dramatic
content to his misery and
meaning to his life. Fifteen times over the
next several years he
watched this tale of a psychotic taxi driver, Travis
Bickle (played by Robert DeNiro), who
contemplates political
assassination
and then rescues--through violence--a vulnerable
young prostitute, Iris
(played by Jodie Foster), from the clutches of her
pimp. In the
movie,
Hinckley seems to find clues to escape his
depression. He
begins
to adopt the dress, preferences, and mannerisms of
the Bickle
character.
Like Bickle, Hinckley begins keeping a diary,
wearing an army fatigue
jacket
and boots, drinking peach brandy, and develops a
fascination with
guns.
In letters to his parents in Evergreen, Colorado,
Hinckley describes a
fabricated relationship with a "Lynn," who shares
many characteristics
with Bickle's initial love interest in the movie, a
campaign worker
named
"Betsy" (played by Cybill Shepherd). Most
significantly, however,
Hinckley begins a long-term obsession with actress Jodie
Foster.
In the spring of 1977,
admitting
defeat in his
attempt to launch a musical career, Hinckley
returned Texas Tech, where
he sporadically attended class and spent most of his
time alone.
Over the next two years, Hinckley's parents
expressed increasing
concern
to their son about his occupational goals. His
depression
deepened.
Life seemed to lack purpose. In August, 1979,
he bought his first
gun and took up target-shooting. Two times
that fall he played
"Russian
Roulette." By Christmas of 1979, fear of facing his
family caused him
to
spend the holiday by himself in Lubbock. A photo
Hinckley took of himself in early 1980 shows
him holding a gun to
his
temple.
In the summer of 1980, Hinckley
informed his parents
that he had a new career goal, writing. He
asked his parents to
pay
for writing course at Yale. Hinckley never
intended to enroll in
writing course; his interest in visiting New Haven
centered on one of
Yale's
undergraduates: Jodie Foster. With $3,600 of
his parents' money
and
promising to work diligently at Yale, Hinckley set
off for Connecticut
on September 17.
Not surprisingly, Hinckley
failed in
his efforts
to win the love of Jodie Foster. Too shy to
approach her in
person,
Hinckley left letters
and poems in her mailbox and talked to her
twice--awkwardly--over
the
phone.
Soon after his disappointment
at Yale,
Hinckley
began to stalk President Carter at campaign
appearances. In a
three-day
period, Hinckley visited three cities where Carter
rallies were held:
Washington,
D. C., Columbus, and Dayton. Although
assassinating the President
was
clearly on his mind, Hinckley explained later that
at that time he was
unable to get himself into "a frame of mind where he
could actually
carry
out the act." Video taken in Dayton showed
Hinckley to have
gotten
within twenty feet of the President.
For the next few weeks,
Hinckley
continued to fly
frenetically around the country. He
reappeared in New Haven,
then flew to Lincoln, Nebraska on October 6, where
he hoped to meet
with
"one of the leading ideologicians" of the American
Nazi Party.
The
hoped-for meeting never took place. From
Lincoln it was on to
Nashville,
for another Carter campaign stop. Security
officers at the
Nashville
airport arrested Hinckley for carrying handguns in
his suitcase, and
confiscated
both the guns and handcuffs also found in his
luggage. Hinckley
paid
a fine and was released. After yet another
short visit to Yale,
Hinckley
flew to Dallas, where he purchased more
handguns. Then Hinckley
boarded
a flight for Washington, continuing his trailing of
Carter.
On October 20, his $3,600
exhausted,
Hinckley
flew home to Colorado, where his parents expressed
strong
disappointment
in his failure to carry out his promises.
After Hinckley
overdosed
on antidepressant medication, the Hinckleys arranged
for their son to
meet
with a local psychiatrist, Dr.
John Hopper. Hopper met with Hinckley
several times over the
course of the next four months, but learned nothing
of Hinckley's
thoughts
of assassination and little of his obsession with
Foster. Hopper
urged JoAnn and Jack Hinckley to push John toward
emotional and
financial
independence.
Hinckley's mental health did
not
improve--rather,
it deteriorated. He continued flying across
the country to
Washington
(where the new President-Elect, Ronald Reagan, was
staying), New York
(where
John Lennon had just been assassinated), and New
Haven. While in
New York, Hinckley seriously contemplated killing
himself in front of
the
Dakota Hotel, at the exact spot where Lennon had
been shot. On
New
Year's Eve of 1980, Hinckley recorded a deeply disturbing
monologue in which he spoke of not "really"
wanting "to hurt" Jodie
Foster, his fears about losing his sanity, and the
likelihood of
"suicide
city" if he failed to win Foster's love.
Hinckley returned to Colorado
for his
last time
on March 7, 1981. Jack
Hinckley met John at the Denver airport and
told John--having
failed
to obtain a job--he would not be allowed to go home
to Evergreen.
Jack Hinckley gave his son $200, which John used to
pay for motel rooms
in Denver where he sat alone watching television and
reading.
Hinckley--unbeknownst to his
father--interrupted
his stays in cheap motels to visit his mother
several times. On
March
25, JoAnn
Hinckley drove John to the Stapleton Airport
in Denver. They
drove in virtual silence. At the curbside in
front of the
terminal,
as he reached for his suitcase John said to his
mother, "I want to
thank
you, Mom, for everything you've ever done for me,
all these
years."
JoAnn Hinckley felt fear "climb into my throat" as
she replied, "You're
very welcome."
THE ASSASSINATION
After a one-day stay in
Hollywood and
a cross-country
trip by Greyhound Bus, Hinckley checked into the
Park Central Hotel in
Washington, D. C. on the afternoon of March
29. After a restless
night, Hinckley rose the next morning for a
breakfast at
McDonald's.
On the way back to the hotel, he picked up the
Washington Star.
Hinckley
noticed the President's schedule, on page A-4,
indicating that Reagan
would
be speaking to a labor convention at the Washingon
Hilton in just a
couple
of hours. Hinckley showered, took Valium to
calm himself, loaded
his twenty-two with exploding Devastator bullets
purchased nine months
earlier at a pawn shop in Lubbock, then wrote a
letter to Jodie
Foster.
The Foster letter shed light on the bizarre motive
for Hinckley's plan:
Dear
Jodie,
There
is
a definite possibility that I will be
killed in my attempt to get
Reagan. It is for this very reason that I
am writing you this
letter
now.
As
you
well know by now I love you very much.
Over the past seven months
I've left you dozens of poems, letters and love
messages in the faint
hope
that you could develop an interest in me.
Although we talked on
the
phone a couple of times I never had the nerve to
simply approach you
and
introduce myself. Besides my shyness, I
honestly did not wish to
bother you with my constant presence. I
know the many messages
left
at your door and in your mailbox were a
nuisance, but I felt that it
was
the most painless way for me to express my love
for you.
I
feel very good about the fact that you at least
know my name and know
how I feel about you. And by hanging
around your dormitory, I've
come to realize that I'm the topic of more than
a little conversation,
however full of ridicule it may be. At
least you know that I'll
always
love you.
Jodie,
I would abandon this idea of getting Reagan in a
second if I
could
only win your heart and live out the rest of my
life with you, whether
it be in total obscurity or whatever.
I
will admit to you that the reason I'm going
ahead with this attempt
now
is because I just cannot wait any longer to
impress you. I've got
to do something now to make you understand, in
no uncertain terms, that
I am doing all of this for your sake! By
sacrificing my freedom
and
possibly my life, I hope to change your mind
about me. This
letter
is being written only an hour before I leave for
the Hilton
Hotel.
Jodie, I'm asking you to please look into your
heart and at least give
me the chance, with this historical deed, to
gain your respect and love.
I
love
you forever,
John
Hinckley
At one-thirty, Hinckley took a
cab
through
a light drizzle to the Hilton.
The President waved to a crowd
as he
walked toward
the hotel entrance at 1:45. Hinckley waved
back. At 2:25,
accompanied
by aides and bodyguards, Reagan left the hotel and
began moving towards
his waiting limousine. A voice yelled,
"President Reagan,
President
Reagan!" As
the President turned in his direction,
Hinckley--crouching like a
marksman--emptied
the six bullets in his gun in rapid
succession. The first bullet
tore through the brain of press secretary James
Brady. The second
his policeman Thomas Delahanty in the back.
The third overshot
the
President and hit a building. The fourth shot
hit secret service
agent Timothy McCarthy in the chest. The fifth
shot hit the
bullet-proof
glass of the President's limousine.
The sixth and final bullet
nearly
killed the President.
As aides rushed to push Reagan into his car, the
bullet ricocheted off
the car, then hit the President in the chest, grazed
a rib and lodged
in
his lung, just inches from his heart. At first it
was assumed that the
bullet missed the President, and the limousine
headed for the White
House.
Within seconds, however, the President began
coughing up blood and the
limousine changed course and sped for George
Washington University
Hospital,
where the President underwent two hours of
life-saving surgery.
Hinckley was still clicking the
trigger on his
twenty-two when secret service agents wrestled him
to the ground.
An agent recalled a "desperate feeling of 'I've got
to get to it and
stop
it.'" as he came down on Hinckley with his right arm
around his head.
THE TRIAL
With dozens of witnesses and
the
shootings captured
on videotape, the government knew as well as John
Hinckley's own
defense
lawyer, Vince
Fuller, that the only plausible defense was
the insanity
defense.
After a brief detention at the Marine base in
Quantico, Virginia--where
Fuller first met Hinckley--, he was transferred to a
federal
penitentiary
in Butner, North Carolina. Fuller informed
Hinckley's parents of
the reasons for the move: "They want to do a
psychiatric evaluation,
and
Butner has the facilities." Over the next four
months,
psychiatrists
for both sides probed nearly every aspect of
Hinckley's life.
When the psychiatric reports
came in,
there were
no surprises. All the government psychiatrists
concluded that
Hinckley
was legally sane--that he appreciated the
wrongfulness of his act--at
the
time of the shooting. All three defense
psychiatrists diagnosed
Hinckley
as psychotic--and legally insane--at the time of the
shooting.
Further evidence of the severity of Hinckley's
mental problems came in
May, two days before his twenty-sixth birthday, when
he attempted
suicide
by overdosing on Valium. In November, he tried
again--this time
hanging
himself in his cell window.
Hinckley insisted that his
lawyers get
Jodie Foster
to testify in his trial. If they didn't make
every effort to do
so,
he said, he would refuse to cooperate in his own
defense.
Eventually,
Fuller arranged with Foster's lawyer to have the
actress testify in a
closed
session with only the judge, lawyers, and Hinckley
present. The
tape
could later be introduced into evidence at the
trial. When
Hinckley
received the news he excitedly told his parents,
"Mom! Dad! I'll be
right
there in the same room!"
On March 30, 1982, authorities
took
Hinckley to
the federal courthouse in Washington for Jodie
Foster's videotaped
testimony.
The testimony sorely disappointed Hinckley, who
received not a single
glance
or word on his behalf from Foster. As Foster
completed her
testimony,
Hinckley hurled a ballpoint pen at her and yelled,
"I'll get you
Foster!"
Marshals surrounded Hinckley and hauled him from the
room.
Jury selection for the Hinckley
trial
began on
April 27, 1982. Selected from a pool of ninety
potential jurors
were
eleven blacks and one white, seven women and five
men.
The first phase of the
prosecution
case, uncontested
by the defense, established the obvious: that a
shooting had occurred
and
that Hinckley had done the shooting. Early
prosecution witnesses
included two of Hinckley's victims, police officer
Thomas Delahanty and
secret service agent Timothy McCarthy, and a
neurosurgeon who described
the path of Hinckley's bullet through the brain of
James Brady.
Prosecutor Roger
Adelman also attempted to show premeditation
by introducing video
footage
showing Hinckley's face in a crowd at a Carter
campaign rally in Dayton
and producing an attendant at a Colorado rifle range
who testified that
Hinckley engaged in target practicing there in
December, 1980.
When the prosecution rested its
formal
case, the
real trial--the insanity trial--began. Defense
attorney Vince
Fuller
opened by asking JoAnn Hinckley about John's
childhood, his letters to
home from Texas Tech about the imaginary "Lynn,"
missing money
(presumably
stolen by John) from Jack Hinckley's study. In
cross-examination
of JoAnn Hinckley, Assistant U. S. Attorney Robert
Chapman tried to
establish
through his questions that Hinckley couldn't have
been too sick--or his
parents would have known about it. Why,
Chapman wanted to know,
did
JoAnn Hinckley in the months before the shooting
tell John's
psychiatrist,
Dr. Hopper, that "things are fine."
Jack Hinckley testified about
his
decision to
cut off John's financial support. He told
about the day in Denver
when he left him to find a cheap motel and try to
make a life: "O.K.,
you
are on your own. Do whatever you want to
do." Jack Hinckley
said, "Looking back on that, I'm sure that it was
the greatest mistake
in my life." He tried to take the blame for
what happened: "I am
the cause of John's tragedy--I forced him out at a
time when he simply
couldn't cope. I wish to God that I could
trade places with him
right
now."
Dr. John Hopper, wearing
aviator
glasses and talking
in a weary tone, testified about his misdiagnosis of
Hinckley.
John
was not merely an "unmotivated kid who needed
behavioral therapy," as
he
first thought, but someone suffering from serious
mental illness.
An autobiography written by John in November 1980 at
Hopper's request
was
introduced into evidence. In it, Hinckley
wrote of "a
relationship
I had dreamed about" that "went absolutely nowhere"
and a mind that was
"on the breaking point." Hopper, relying on
his face-to-face
judgment
of Hinckley, had failed to appreciate the
seriousness of the warnings
contained
in the autobiography. Hopper also testified
that he knew nothing
of Hinckley's stalking of President Carter or his
purchase of handguns.
As technicians set up
television sets
at various
locations in the courtroom, Judge Barrington Parker
told the jury:
"Ladies
and gentleman, at this point in time you will see a
video tape
rendition
of a deposition of the witness Jodie Foster."
At the defense
table,
John moved from his habitual slump to an upright
position. Foster
described Hinckley's first sets of letters to her as
"lover-type
letters."
The last batch of letters Foster called
"distress-sounding" and she
said
"I gave them to the dean of my college." One letter,
dated March 6,
1981,
said only: "Jodie Foster, love, just wait. I
will rescue you very
soon. please cooperate. J.W.H."
Asked whether she'd
"ever
seen a message like that before," Foster replied,
"Yes, in the movie Taxi
Driver the character Travis Bickle sends the
character Iris a
rescue
letter." Then came a series of questions that caused
Hinckley to stand
and bolt through the courtroom door--pursued by
federal marshals:
"Now
with
respect to the
individual John W. Hinckley, looking at him in the
courtroom today, do
you recall seeing him in person before today?"
"No."
"Did you ever
respond
to his letters?"
"No, I did not."
"Did you ever
invite
his approaches?"
"No."
"How would you
describe
your relationship
with John Hinckley?"
"I don't have
any
relationship
with John Hinckley."
After Foster's videotaped
testimony, the
defense
case continued with the introduction of tapes of brief
phone
conversations
with Jodie Foster found in Hinckley's Washington hotel
room. The
tapes revealed a puzzled Foster trying to put a quick
end to the call:
"I can't carry on these conversations with people I
don't know."
The lead psychiatric expert for
the
defense was Dr.
William
Carpenter. One commentator described
Carpenter as
looking
like "Father
Time" with his gray beard and shoulder length
hair. From
forty-five
hours of conversation with John Hinckley, Carpenter
concluded the
defendant
suffered from schizophrenia. He saw Hinckley
has having four
major
symptoms of mental illness: "an incapacity to have
an ordinary
emotional
arousal," "autistic retreat from reality,"
depression including
"suicidal
features," and an inability to work or establish
social bonds.
According
to
Carpenter, Hinckley's lack of conviction about
his identity led
him to snatch fragments of personality from book and
movie
characters--such
as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. As he
played his guitar
alone
in dormitory and hotel rooms, Hinckley had come to
think of himself as
John Lennon--and thus was thrown into mental chaos
by Lennon's sudden
death.
The monologue Hinckley recorded on New Year's Eve
showed the depth of
his
confusion:
John
Lennon
is dead. The
world is over. Forget it. It's just gonna be
insanity, if I even make
it
through the first few days. . . . I still regret
having to go on with
1981
. . . I don't know why people wanna live . . .
John Lennon is dead. . .
I still think-I still think about Jodie all the
time. That's all I
think
about really. That, and John Lennon's death. They
were sorta binded
together...
When Jack Hinckley refused to let
their
son come
back home in 1981, John's last link to the real world
was severed,
Carpenter
testified. At his low-rent hotel, Hinckley
signed the guest
register,
"J. Travis." with normal moorings lost, Hinckley
followed the "dictates
from his inner world." He felt compelled to
"rescue" Jodie
Foster.
According to Carpenter, "He feels like he is on a
roller coaster, and
cannot
escape." Carpenter saw in the shooting of Reagan
thoughts of
suicide:
"His state of mind during the time is depression, the
need to terminate
all of this, to have his own death." He noted
that Hinckley
"personalized"
Reagan's wave--he thought it was a wave just to him,
when it was
actually
intended for the crowd--, and said that seeing
personalized messages in
ordinary events was a classic symptom of mental
illness.
Carpenter ended three days of
testimony by concluding
that Hinckley could appreciate the wrongfulness of
his act
"intellectually,"
but not emotionally. To him, the President and
the others he shot
were just "bit players." So focused was he on
achieving a
"magical
unification with Jodie Foster" that he didn't see
the consequences of
his
action for his victims.
Dr.
David Bear joined in Carpenter's diagnosis of
psychosis. He
testified
that Hinckley thought Travis Bickle was talking to
him. He began
to feel "like he was acting out a movie
script." It was highly
unlikely
that Hinckley was faking illness, because those that
do almost always
report
fake "positive" signs like hearing voices of having
visions.
Hinckley's
signs were all "negative," like showing no emotion
and jumping in his
thought.
Hinckley's shooting of the President, according to
Bear, was "the very
opposite of logic." Finally, Bear suggested that a
CAT-scan of Hinckley
showing widened sulci in his brain was "powerful"
evidence of his
schizophrenia:
about one-third of schizophrenics have widened
sulci, but only about 2%
of the normal population.
Dr. Ernest Prelinger, a Yale
psychologist, testified
concerning testing he performed on Hinckley.
With an I. Q. of
113,
Hinckley could be classified as "bright
normal." But on the
Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Hinckley was near
the peak of
abnormality.
According to Prelinger, only one person out a
million with Hinckley's
score
would not be suffering from serious mental illness.
A complete showing of the movie
Taxi
Driver
closed the defense case.
The prosecution, in its
psychiatric
evidence,
attempted to shift the focus of the jury back to
March 30, 1981.
The government's lead expert, Dr.
Park Dietz, put forward the diagnosis of the
government's
psychiatric
team: Hinckley suffered from various personality
disorders, but was not
psychotic or insane. Essentially, Hinckley was
a bored, spoiled,
lazy, manipulative rich kid. The teams' report
concluded:
Mr.
Hinckley's history
is clearly indicative of a person who did not
function in a usual
reasonable
manner. However, there is no evidence that
he was so impaired
that
he could not appreciate the wrongfulness of his
conduct or conform his
conduct to the requirements of the law.
Dietz had a contradictory
interpretation
of nearly
every piece of a defense evidence. Hinckley's
frequent flying
showed
an ability to make complex travel arrangements more
than it did an
insane
obsession. His choice of Devestator bullets, his
concealing of
his
handgun, and his timing of his assassination attempt
showed
planning.
Hinckley imitated Travis Bickle much as would the fan
of rock star--he
didn't "absorb" his identity as the defense
contended. Hinckley
did
not have an "obsession" with Foster, but only the sort
of infatuation a
young man might often have for a starlet. His
bizarre writings
were
"fiction" that were "not that useful" in determining
his mental state.
Dietz
testified that Hinckley viewed his actions on
March 30 as
successful.
"It worked," Hinckley told Dietz in an
interview. "You know,
actually,
I accomplished everything I was going for
there. Actually, I
should
feel good because I accomplished everything on a
grand scale....I
didn't
get any big thrill out of killing--I mean
shooting--him. I did it
for her sake....The movie isn't over yet."
After the testimony of another
psychiatric expert,
Dr. Sally Johnson, who confirmed Dietz's basic
findings, Adelman
announced,
"Your honor, the prosecution rests."
Closing
arguments contained moments of drama.
Adelman, in the
government's
summation, strode back and forth in front of the
jury with the actual
gun
used in the shootings as he shouted to the jurors,
"This man shot down
in the street James Brady, a bullet in his
brain!" Defense
attorney
Vince Fuller's recounting of Hinckley's "pathetic"
life left John
crying
at the defense table, his face in his hands, bent
forward, and shaking.
Judge Barrington Parker ended
eight
weeks of evidence
and arguments by reading his instructions
to the jury. Most importantly, Parker
told the jurors that
the
prosecution had the burden of showing beyond a
reasonable doubt that
Hinckley
was not insane: that on March 30, 1981 he could
appreciate the
wrongfulness
of his actions. Parker did not tell the jury
should reach its
conclusion
by focusing solely on Hinckley's intellectual
awareness of the
wrongfulness
of his action, as the prosecution suggested, or by
some broader notion
that included emotional appreciation of
wrongfulness.
For over three days the jury
deliberated Hinckley's
fate. Finally, a verdict. Judge Parker
asked the twenty-two
year-old jury foreman to unseal the envelope
containing the verdict and
hand it to a clerk, who passed it to the
judge. Parker read the
verdict:
"As to Count 1, Not Guilty by Reason of
Insanity. As to Count 2,
Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity." The reading
continued, the
same
verdict for each of the thirteen counts.
INSANITY DEFENSE REFORM IN
THE TRIAL
AFTERMATH
Within a month of the Hinckley
verdict, the House
and Senate were holding hearings on the insanity
defense. A
measure
proposed by Senator Arlen Specter shifted the burden
of proof of
insanity
to the defense. President Reagan expressed his
support for the
measure
with the comment, "If you start thinking about even
a lot of your
friends,
you would have to say, 'Gee, if I had to prove they
were sane, I would
have a hard job.' "
Joining Congress in shifting
the
burden of proof
were a number of states. Within three years
after the Hinckley
verdict,
two-thirds of the states placed the burden on the
defense to prove
insanity,
while eight states adopted a separate verdict of
"guilty but mentally
ill,"
and one state (Utah) abolished the defense
altogether.
In addition to shifting the
burden in
insanity
cases, Congress also narrowed the defense
itself. Legislation
passed
in 1984 required the defendant to prove a "severe"
mental disease and
eliminated
the "volitional" or "control"aspect of the insanity
defense.
After
1984, a federal defendant has had to prove that the
"severe" mental
disease
made him "unable to appreciate the nature and
quality or the
wrongfulness
of his acts."
HINCKLEY AT ST. ELIZABETHS
Following his acquittal, John
Hinckley
was transferred
to St.
Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington. He
is entitled to his
freedom
once it is proved that he is no longer a threat,
because of his mental
illness, to himself or others.
On December 17, 2003, a federal
judge
ruled that
Hinckley was
entitled to unsupervised visits with his
parents. In 2007, a
request for unsupervised visits extending as long as
one month was
denied. The judge based his denial not on any
problems with prior
visits (there were none), but because the hospital
had not taken "the
necessary steps" for such a "transition." In
July 2016, Judge Paul Friedman concluded that John
Hinckley no longer posed a serious risk to himself
or others and ordered his release.