John Hinckley Trial: 1982

Senior prosecutor Roger Adelman made his opening address on May 5, 1982. He described how Hinckley had deliberately stalked the President, and that when the time came to act, he assumed the "crouch position" used by an experienced marksman cognizant of his own actions. "With six shots, Mr. Hinckley hit four people," said Adelman, concluding that these were "the central and critical events" of the case.

Chief defense counsel Vincent Fuller made no attempt to deny the truth of what Adelman had said, but he disputed the motivation. He traced the origins of the assassination attempt back to Hinckley's four-year obsession with movie actress Jodie Foster, an obsession that led to prolonged psychiatric treatment. Frustrated by his inability to meet Foster, Fuller said, Hinckley retreated "into this world of isolation." He began stalking President Jimmy Carter, and later The scene immediately after John Hinckley's assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, March 30, 1981. (Bettmann/Corbis) President Reagan. On the morning of the shooting Hinckley checked into a Washington hotel and wrote Foster an undelivered letter, clearly outlining his intentions:

Dear Jodie,

There is a definite possibility that I will be killed in my attempt to get Reagan. It is for this reason that I am writing you this letter now.… I am asking you to please look into your heart and at least give me the chance, with this historical deed, to gain your respect and love.

I love you forever.

—John Hinckley

The accused's father, Jack Hinckley, delivered an impassioned plea from the witness stand. Referring to the rancor between himself and his psychologically troubled son—enough to compel Hinckley's banishment from the family home—Jack Hinckley cried,

I am the cause of John's tragedy. I forced him out at a time when he simply could not cope. I wish to God that I could trade places with him right now.

Testimony, quite predictably, developed into a battle of medical opinion. Was Hinckley a helpless victim of his own neurosis, or was he, as prosecutors alleged, a willful assassin? Dipping deep into his sizable fortune, Hinckley's father paid the handsome fees of an impressive array of psychiatrists to argue the former.