Hinckley Considers Hiring Attorney Mark Lane

Presidential assailant John W. Hinckley Jr., after giving his first public testimony, received permission Thursday to start negotiations to hire assassination buff Mark Lane as his lawyer.

“It is my belief that I have the right to choose who will be my attorney,” Hinckley told U.S. District Judge June L. Green at a hearing on his request to dismiss his longstanding defense team and begin discussions with Lane.

Green gave Hinckley permission to interview Lane and any other prospective attorneys despite reservations expressed by officials of the mental hospital where he has been held since he was acquitted by reason of insanity of shooting President Reagan and three others in 1981.

A psychiatrist at St. Elizabeths Hospital testified that Hinckley still suffers from a serious mental illness and has been moved from a dormitory-style room to a maximum-security ward because he could not handle privileges he had been granted.

Findings Questioned

Lane’s 1968 book, “Rush to Judgment: A Citizen’s Dissent,” questioned the findings of the Warren Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Hospital attorney Janet L. Maher, who argued that letting Hinckley interview prospective lawyers “presents a unique opportunity for exploitation,” reminded Hinckley that Lane had written a number of books about people he had represented in criminal cases.

“I don’t think it’s a crime that he’s written these books and interviewed these people,” Hinckley said. “I am sure that the subjects he has written about at some point gave their consent.”

Hinckley, 32, said he wanted to hire Lane because “he has represented some people who are famous to the general public.” These clients gained their notoriety “as criminals, in the criminal world,” he added.