When will John Hinckley be released?
DECADES ago, John Hinckley Jr attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan during his presidency.
In the wake of the 1981 shooting, Hinckley was admitted to a psychiatric facility, but he will be unconditionally released in 2022.
When will John Hinckley be released from prison?
On September 27, 2021, legal officials met with US District Judge Paul Friedman in federal court.
The parties reconvened to discuss Hinckley Jr’s freedom from court-imposed restrictions.
Judge Friedman ruled that the shooter will be released unconditionally from court supervision on June 15, 2022.
At the time, the judge said of his ruling: “If he hadn’t tried to kill a president, he would have been released unconditionally a long time ago.”
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Was John Hinckley Jr sentenced for his attempted assassination of Reagan?
On March 30, 1981, then-President Ronald Reagan attended a public speaking engagement in Washington DC.
While leaving the event’s location, Hinckley opened fire on Reagan and his accompanying staff.
He perpetrated the crime in an effort to gain attention from Jodie Foster, who he was obsessed with for years.
The shooting paralyzed Reagan’s press secretary James Brady, who succumbed to the injuries in 2014.
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Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and Washington police officer Thomas Delahanty were also injured during the shooting.
Although Hinckley did not succeed in killing the 40th president, he did notably wound him.
Reagan’s injuries from the shooting were due to a bullet ricocheting off of his limousine and hitting him under his left arm.
The bullet’s deflection resulted in a broken rib, punctured lung, and internal bleeding.
Hinckley Jr’s trial commenced sometime in early 1982.
On June 21, 1982, the trial’s jury decided Hinckley was suffering from acute psychosis and found him not guilty by reason of insanity, saying he needed treatment and not life in prison.
In 2016, a federal judge ruled that Hinckley could be released from psychiatric care under court-imposed conditions.
The conditions included doctors and therapists overseeing his psychiatric medication and deciding how often he attends individual and group therapy sessions.
A 2020 violence risk assessment conducted on behalf of Washington’s Department of Behavioral Health concluded that Hinckley would not pose a danger.
How long was Hinckley Jr in the psych ward?
Hinckley Jr remained under institutional psychiatric care for over three decades.
In 2016, after being treated at St. Elizabeth’s psychiatric hospital in Washington for 35 years, Reagan’s perpetrator was permitted to leave the mental hospital.
He was allowed to move to Williamsburg, Virginia, under a number of restrictions.
The rules included him living at his mother’s home in Williamsburg, not being allowed to possess a weapon or any memorabilia of Jodie Foster, contacting Reagan’s family, or erasing his computer’s web browser history.
In November 2018, Hinckley was authorized to live on his own, which led to Judge Friedman’s aforementioned ruling in September 2021.
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