[Daily Nation (Kenya)] A US government mental hospital is seeking to eventually set free John Hinckley Jr., the man who tried to assassinate ex-president Ronald Reagan in 1981, CNN reported on its website.
Hinckley, now 56, was committed to St Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington in 1982 after he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the shock shooting of Reagan and three others, including Reagan's press secretary James Brady.
Prosecutors asked a closed court on Friday not to release him, CNN said. In their filing, they called Hinckley "a man capable of great violence" and said his mental condition left some concerns "that this violence may be repeated," the report said.
The hospital wants Hinckley to be able to live near his 85-year-old mother in Virginia.
Hospital lawyers and doctors filed a motion under seal at the end of July asking that Hinckley eventually be placed on "convalescent leave," but prosecutors quoted it in their own filing, making it part of the public record.
US District Judge Paul Friedman had scheduled up to a week of court hearings on the issue to start November 28.
Hinckley, a college dropout, waited for Reagan to walk out of a Washington hotel where he had given a speech on March 31, 1981. Hinckley fired his six-shot .22 revolver at the then-US president.
Reagan was seriously wounded but recovered. Brady suffered a serious brain injury and never was able to return to his White House duties. |