Judge Rejects Hinckley Request for Unattended Trips

A federal judge rejected Monday a request by John W. Hinckley Jr., who shot and wounded President Reagan five years ago, that he be allowed to leave his mental hospital unattended once a month.

Hinckley contended that his crime and not his mental condition has prevented him from gaining greater freedom at St. Elizabeths mental hospital.

“I don’t claim to be a perfect person, but I do know that my mental illness is in remission,” a subdued Hinckley told U.S. District Judge Barrington D. Parker, who presided at his trial.

Hinckley, in a brief statement to the court, said he felt remorse for the shooting of Reagan outside a Washington hotel on March 30, 1981, an act he described as ugly and senseless. Three other people were wounded in the incident.

Transfer Rejected

Parker also turned down Hinckley’s request that he be transferred to a less restrictive ward at the government-run institution.

Hinckley, 30, has been held in a maximum-security ward since a jury ruled in June, 1982, that he was innocent by reason of insanity.

Parker’s ruling came after Dr. June A. Turkus, Hinckley’s psychiatrist since 1982, said that physicians treating Hinckley, the drifter son of a Colorado oil executive, do not believe that “it is clinically appropriate” to grant either request now.