The Nation - News from Aug. 2, 1988

A federal judge in Washington ordered the mental hospital where John W. Hinckley Jr. is being held to justify its plan to allow the presidential assailant to join a day-long field trip outside the hospital with other patients. U.S. District Judge Barrington D. Parker granted a request by federal prosecutors for a court hearing, scheduled for next Tuesday, on the proposal by St. Elizabeths Hospital. Parker gave the hospital until Friday to file with him all treatment records and other documents to support its conclusion that Hinckley could participate “without posing a danger to himself or to others.” Last year, the government successfully opposed an attempt by hospital authorities to allow Hinckley to visit his parents over the Easter weekend.