Man who shot Reagan wants unsupervised day trips
Prosecutors: Hinckley remains a danger to community
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John Hinckley Jr. has been hospitalized since 1982.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Lawyers for John Hinckley Jr., the man who shot President Reagan in 1981, will ask a federal court Monday to let their client take day trips to his parents' house in Virginia and stay overnight with them.
Federal prosecutors are fighting the request, arguing in a pre-hearing memorandum last week that Hinckley cannot be trusted and would represent a danger to the community.
"No one knows what Mr. Hinckley is thinking. He has boasted that he can fool medical experts, and he continually has been proven deceptive about important matters throughout the years of his hospitalization," a government court document said.
In 1982, a jury found Hinckley not guilty by reason of insanity of attempting to assassinate Reagan and wounding a Secret Service agent and presidential spokesman James Brady outside a hotel in Washington. He has been institutionalized at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington ever since.
At Monday's hearing, Hinckley's attorneys will ask that he be permitted to make five day trips to the home of his parents, Jack and Jo Ann Hinckley, in Williamsburg, Virginia, about 150 miles south of Washington. It also seeks five overnight visits at their home.
In court documents, Hinckley's lawyers said witnesses -- including government experts -- will testify that he would pose no danger to himself or others during such a conditional release.
For several years, Hinckley has been allowed to leave the hospital, but he is always accompanied by hospital staff. The defense said those visits have "been a great success."
In its court filing, the defense also said that it is "undisputed that the psychosis and depression from which Mr. Hinckley suffered at the time of the original commitment to the hospital have been in full and stable remission for over a decade."
The hospital is arguing in favor of a gradual schedule of unsupervised visits, which would begin with day trips and overnight stays with Hinckley's parents in the Washington area, followed later by overnight stays with his parents at their home in Williamsburg.
But in their court filing, prosecutors stressed the court may release Hinckley only if it is satisfied that his parents will provide for the security of the community during conditional releases.
"Neither Mr. Hinckley nor the hospital may ask the court to rely on presence of agents of Secret Service to provide security for the community, because there is no factual basis to find that agents provide such security," prosecutors said in their court filing.
However, lawyers for Hinckley said the government has so far not offered any concrete reasons why the unsupervised visits should not go forward, saying its opposition "is based solely on an appeal to irrational fear and anger, rather than on the evidence."
Prosecutors point to a statement Hinckley made in 1987, when asking for supervised visits, in which he said he was able to deceive his psychiatrists.
But the defense lawyers say relying on that statement today is "disingenuous," because the government has not offered any proof Hinckley believes that now.
In its filing, the defense lawyers disclosed that they had arrived at an agreement with Washington's U.S. Attorney's office "that would have permitted Mr. Hinckley to take part in conditional releases," but it was rejected by the Justice Department.
At Monday's hearing, the Justice Department plans to call two prominent psychiatrists to bolster its case against the visits, while the defense plans to call two experts of its own who have treated Hinckley at the hospital and will argue he does not pose a danger.
The hearing is expected to last about two days.
