Judge Allows Shooting Victims to Sue Hinckley

John W. Hinckley Jr., who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981, is liable for damages to three men he wounded in the shooting, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Court Judge John Garrett Penn said the fact that Hinckley was found innocent by reason of insanity in Reagan’s shooting does not absolve him of liability for damages to former presidential Press Secretary James Brady and two security officers, Thomas K. Delahanty and Timothy J. McCarthy.

“The question of the defendant’s sanity, at the time of the (shootings), remains a genuine issue of fact to be tried,” Penn said.

Hinckley, who was found innocent by reason of insanity on charges from the March 30, 1981, assassination attempt, asked the court to dismiss the lawsuits by the three men because of the earlier verdict. He has been confined at St. Elizabeths mental hospital in Washington since June 21, 1982, the day of his acquittal.

But Penn said that while the government had the burden of proving that Hinckley was sane in the criminal case, in a civil trial Hinckley “bears the burden of proving that he was insane.” He added that even “an insane person is liable for compensatory damages. . . .”

Penn said the amount of compensatory damages, and whether Hinckley also should pay punitive damages, would have to be determined at a trial.

Brady, Delahanty and McCarthy brought suit against Hinckley in 1982, seeking both compensatory and punitive damages. They contend that Hinckley knew what he was doing when he fired the shots that hit them.

McCarthy, a Secret Service agent assigned to protect Reagan, was shot in the chest. Delahanty, a District of Columbia police officer, was shot in the neck. Brady, the most seriously injured, was shot in the head and left permanently impaired. Reagan was also wounded in the attack outside the Washington Hilton Hotel.

A trial on the lawsuits had been scheduled for September but has been continued. Attorneys for Hinckley and for the three plaintiffs delayed talks on a possible settlement while waiting for Penn to rule on Hinckley’s motion to dismiss the suits.

The plaintiffs contend that Hinckley’s most valuable asset is his life story and that his victims should receive any royalties or profits from a book, movie or TV program.