John Hinckley, Who Attempted to Kill US President Reagan, Released

Prosecutors opposed Hinckley’s efforts to gain more freedom, saying that he had a history of deceptive behaviour.

More than 35 years after he tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in an effort to impress actress Jodie Foster, John Hinckley Jr. will be allowed to leave a Washington mental hospital and live full time with his mother in Virginia, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

Judge Paul Friedman wrote in a 14-page ruling and accompanying 103-page opinion that Hinckley — who currently spends more than half his days at his mother’s home — is ready to live full time in the community no sooner than 5 August.

Doctors have said for many years that Hinckley, 61, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting, is no longer plagued by the mental illness that drove him to shoot Reagan.

“I don’t like flipping around the TV, I want to do things,” a court document quoted him saying. He has also said he wants to “fit in” and be “a good citizen”.

Three others were wounded in the 30 March 1981, shooting outside a Washington hotel, including Reagan’s press secretary, James Brady, who suffered debilitating injuries and died in 2014. His death was later ruled a homicide, but prosecutors said they would not charge Hinckley with murder, in part because they would be barred from arguing he was sane at the time of the shooting.

Prosecutors had consistently opposed Hinckley’s efforts to gain more freedom, citing what they called a history of deceptive behavior.

In July 2011, prosecutors said, Hinckley was supposed to go see a movie and instead went to a Barnes & Noble, where Secret Service agents saw him looking at shelves that contained books about Reagan and the assassination attempt. He didn’t pick up any of the books.

The shooting endangered Reagan’s life, but he recovered after undergoing emergency surgery. He died in 2004 at age 93.

(With agency inputs from AP.)