John Hinckley Trial: 1982

Dr. David Bear of Harvard University described Hinckley's obsession with the movie Taxi Driver, in which Jodie Foster had starred, explaining how Hinckley identified with the leading character, Travis Bickle, and his attempt to shoot a presidential candidate. Bickle's later success with an attractive woman, said Bear, convinced Hinckley that "violence, horrible as it is, was rewarded … [he] felt like he was acting out a movie script."

Answering for the government, Dr. Park Dietz characterized Hinckley as a spoiled rich kid, basking in "notions of achieving success and fame in a way that would not require a great deal of effort." Settling on some sensational crime as the easiest means of gaining attention, Hinckley then "thought about a variety of potential crimes and how much publicity each would attract." While conceding Hinckley's abnormality, Dietz insisted that the defendant was never out of touch with reality—the hallmark of psychosis.

Such contradictory and confusing testimony clearly presented enormous problems for the jurors as they retired on Friday, June 18, 1982. They returned the following Monday. Judge Barrington Parker, visibly shaken, read their verdict—not guilty by reason of insanity—to a stunned courtroom. In post-trial interviews some jurors hinted that they had been coerced into this verdict by other jurors. Following acquittal, Hinckley was detained at St. Elizabeth's mental hospital and remains there to the present day.

The most grievously injured victim of Hinckley's havoc, James Brady, lent his name to a bill designed to stiffen gun control regulation but saw his efforts fail to pass the U.S. House of Representatives in March 1992.

In September 1992 a federal judge ruled that Hinckley's insanity did not absolve him of liability for damages to the three presidential aides wounded in the shooting, all of whom had brought suit against the would-be assassin. By the mid-1990s, his doctors felt that after years of therapy and medication, Hinckley was no longer delusional or psychotic. In 1996, Hinckley asked for monthly passes to spend days alone with his parents outside of St. Elizabeth's Hospital. For nearly three years, federal prosecutors opposed such trips. But in August 1999, a three-judge panel decided to allow supervised off-campus visits.

Hinckley's acquittal sparked a vigorous and often misguided debate about the insanity defense. Many sought to curtail its use; others urged total abolition. Sadly, the swell of unrest owed more to the standing of the victims than it did to the facts of the case. John Hinckley had enough peculiarities of mind and behavior to justify the jury's decision.