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Judge: Reagan shooter John Hinckley Jr. can live full-time outside mental hospital

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John Hinckley Jr, who tried to kill President Ronald Reagan in 1981, can live full time in Williamsburg, a federal judge has ordered.

The order says the Hinckley must check in at Washington D.C.’s mental hospital at least once a month for monitoring, and sets out a series of monitoring and therapy sessions for him in Williamsburg.

He is to live with his mother there.

U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman said the evidence of a decade of more than 80 supervised visits to Williamsburg, the assessments of his therapists and the opinion of the prosecution’s expert psychiatrist agreed that Hinckley, 61, is ready to live full-time outside of a mental hospital.

“Thousands of times every day, judges across this country attempt the difficult, daunting task of predicting with confidence what a human being may do in the future … it is fair to say the lives of few people have been scruntinized with the care and detail that John Hinckley’s has,” Friedman wrote.

“On the ultimate mixed question of law and fact — dangerousness — the Court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Hinckley presents no danger to himself or to others in the reasonable future if released on full time convalescent leave to Williamsburg.”

Hinckley, who attempted to kill President Reagan in order to impress the movie star Jodie Foster, was committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington after a jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity.

“Today, more than 34 years later, Mr. Hinckley is 61 years old and suffering from arthritis, high blood pressure and various other physical ailments … Since 1983, when he last attempted suicide, he has displayed no symptoms of active mental illness, exhibited no violent behavior, shown no interest in weapon, and demonstrated no suicidal ideation,” the judge wrote.

The judge set out a set of 34 conditions with which Hinckley must comply.

Hinckley is to carry a GPS-enabled cell phone whenever he is away from his mother’s home, but the judge said there is no need to install a tracking device on any vehicle he may drive.

The order says he cannot drive unaccompanied for more than 30 miles from Williamsburg, except for his monthly trips to Washington to check in at the hospital there.

The judge said he is to have no contact with any member of President Reagan’s family, any member of the family of James Brady, who was injured in the 1981 attempt on the president’s life, or with actress Jodie Foster. In addition, he must stay away from a former Washington police officer and a former Secret Service agent who were injured in the assassination attempt, as well as a former St. Elizabeths employee who accused him of harassing her in the 1990s.

Hinckley is barred from knowingly going to areas where any current or former presidents, vice presidents, members of Congress or people protected by the Secret Service are.

The director of St Elizabethss forensic services unit will interview Hinckley by phone at least once a week to check on his mental status and whether he complying with the several conditions of his release for six months. After that time, the director is to check in by phone at least twice a month.

In addition, Hinckley will work with a three-person Williamsburg-based treatment treatment team. The case manager on that team is to help Hinckley find work or volunteer positions.

The psychiatrist on the Williamsburg team is to meet with him at least twice a month, for at least six months. After that, she is to meet with him at least once a month, the order says.

The team’s group therapist is to meet with Hinckley at least once a week for group therapy sessions and three times a month for individual sessions.

The conditions largely follow those suggested by St. Elizabeth’s, although the judge did agree to limit Hinckley’s access to the Internet to preapproved sites and to require his treatment team to approve his posting of any of his music, poems or other artistic efforts.

“The Court finds that any symptoms of clinical depression or psychosis would develop gradually and would likely be detectable” by his Williamsburg treatment team and by St. Elizabeth’s during his monthly visits there, the judge wrote.

“There is no evidence that Mr. Hinckley is an elopement risk, despite hundreds of opportunities to elope during his visits to Williamsburg and trips outside the hospital over the last twenty or more years,” the judge wrote, explaining his decision not to require an ankle bracelet or vehicle tracking devices.

The federal court began letting Hinckley leave St. Elizabeths for limited periods in 2003, when it allowed six one-day visits with his parents in the Washington area.

It allowed him to visit his parents in Williamsburg in 2006, with three visits of three days each.

In 2009, the court allowed Hinckley to visit his parents for up to 10 days at a time, with the idea that he would begin to take steps toward living with them in the community. He was allowed to spend up to two hours at a time on his own within his mother’s subdivision, and he began volunteering at the Eastern State Hospital library.

At two points in 2011, however, Secret Service agents caught Hinckley breaking conditions imposed on him, lying about attending a movie. Agents tracking him in one instance found he went to a bookstore instead.

In 2014, after a 10 day hearing, the court decided to let Hinckley stay with his mother for periods of up to 17 days. The judge also allowed him to spend more time, unsupervised, outside his mother’s subdivision, for periods of up to four hours.

Hinckley has now completed 27 of those 17 day visits.

“By all accounts, Mr. Hinckley’s socialization has improved dramatically,” the judge wrote, noting that he been out bowling, attending lectures and outdoor concerts and has joined a community center in order to exercise and take classes.

He has been attending meeting of the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and has been volunteering with yard work at the local Unitarian Universalist Church.

Hinckley’s Williamsburg psychiatrist, Deborah Giorgi-Guarnieri, told the court that he has “always been perfect” keeping on his medications, and that his “insights into his illness have improved” during the past five years.

She said she saw no signs of depression, isolation, psychosis, access to weapons, desire to hurt himself or deceptive behavior, all key signals that he might be a risk to himself or other people.