Officials Call Hinckley a Threat, Oppose Bid for Holiday Leaves

Presidential assailant John W. Hinckley Jr. wants to take holiday leaves from a mental hospital where he was sent after shooting President Ronald Reagan, but the government says he is still a security threat.

Hinckley’s petition for court permission to leave the grounds of St. Elizabeths Hospital with his parents on legal holidays cites “great progress in his treatment” that has resulted in “greater privileges and liberties.”

But hospital officials say that Hinckley’s continued mental illness makes him a danger to himself and others.

Secret Service Director John Magaw said in an affidavit that Hinckley is still a security threat. Releasing him even for 12-hour periods in his parents’ custody “could seriously jeopardize the safety of the President.”

Allowing Hinckley to leave the hospital with his parents would not be enough of a safeguard, prosecutors said in their brief. They noted that Hinckley was living with his parents when he stalked President Jimmy Carter and actress Jodie Foster with a loaded handgun.

He also was living with his parents when he shot Reagan on March 30, 1981, outside a Washington hotel. Hinckley, now 37, was acquitted by reason of insanity of the shooting, in which a police officer, a Secret Service agent and then-White House Press Secretary James S. Brady also were wounded.

Any hope that Hinckley and his family had for a Christmas release were quashed this week when U.S. District Judge June L. Green indefinitely postponed a hearing because attorney Barry Levine had a scheduling conflict.

Both sides have asked Green to take testimony from psychiatrists about Hinckley’s mental condition.

Levine claimed in court papers that because Hinckley made progress in therapy he was moved in 1987 from the maximum-security facility to a minimum-security area at St. Elizabeths. Hinckley “has enjoyed the freedom of daily, unsupervised time on the hospital grounds,” the court papers said.