John Hinckley, Jr. Trial(图)

character Iris a rescue letter." Then came a series of questions that caused Hinckley to stand and bolt through the courtroom door——pursued by federal marshals:

　　"Now with respect to the individual John W. Hinckley, looking at him in the courtroom today, do you recall seeing him in person before today?"

　　"No."

　　"Did you ever respond to his letters?"

　　"No, I did not."

　　"Did you ever invite his approaches?"

　　"No."

　　"How would you describe your relationship with John Hinckley?"

　　"I don't have any relationship with John Hinckley."

　　After Foster's videotaped testimony, the defense case continued with the introduction of tapes of brief phone conversations with Jodie Foster found in Hinckley's Washington hotel room. The tapes revealed a puzzled Foster trying to put a quick end to the call: "I can't carry on these conversations with people I don't know."

　　The lead psychiatric expert for the defense was Dr. William Carpenter. One commentator described Carpenter as looking like "Father Time" with his gray beard and shoulder length hair. From forty-five hours of conversation with John Hinckley, Carpenter concluded the defendant suffered from schizophrenia. He saw Hinckley has having four major symptoms of mental illness: "an incapacity to have an ordinary emotional arousal," "autistic retreat from reality," depression including "suicidal features," and an inability to work or establish social bonds.

　　According to Carpenter, Hinckley's lack of conviction about his identity led him to snatch fragments of personality from book and movie characters——such as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. As he played his guitar alone in dormitory and hotel rooms, Hinckley had come to think of himself as John Lennon——and thus was thrown into mental chaos by Lennon's sudden death. The monologue Hinckley recorded on New Year's Eve showed the depth of his confusion:

　　John Lennon is dead. The world is over. Forget it. It's just gonna be insanity, if I even make it through the first few days. . . . I still regret having to go on with 1981 . . . I don't know why people wanna live . . . John Lennon is dead. . . I still think-I still think about Jodie all the time. That's all I think about really. That, and John Lennon's death. They were sorta binded together……

　　When Jack Hinckley refused to let their son come back home in 1981, John's last link to the real world was severed, Carpenter testified. At his low-rent hotel, Hinckley signed the guest register, "J. Travis." with normal moorings lost, Hinckley followed the "dictates from his inner world." He felt compelled to "rescue" Jodie Foster. According to Carpenter, "He feels like he is on a roller coaster, and cannot escape." Carpenter saw in the shooting of Reagan thoughts of suicide: "His state of mind during the time is depression, the need to terminate all of this, to have his own death." He noted that Hinckley "personalized" Reagan's wave——he thought it was a wave just to him, when it was actually intended for the crowd——, and said that seeing personalized messages in ordinary events was a classic symptom of mental illness. Carpenter ended three days of testimony by concluding that Hinckley could appreciate the wrongfulness of his act "intellectually," but not emotionally. To him, the President and the others he shot were just "bit players." So focused was he on achieving a "magical unification with Jodie Foster" that he didn't see the consequences of his action for his victims.

　　Dr. David Bear joined in Carpenter's diagnosis of psychosis. He testified that Hinckley thought Travis Bickle was talking to him. He began to feel "like he was acting out a movie script." It was highly unlikely that Hinckley was faking illness, because those that do almost always report fake "positive" signs like hearing voices of having visions. Hinckley's signs were all "negative," like showing no emotion and jumping in his thought. Hinckley's shooting of the President, according to Bear, was "the very opposite of logic." Finally, Bear suggested t

hat a CAT-scan of Hinckley showing widened sulci in his brain was "powerful" evidence of his schizophrenia: about one-third of schizophrenics have widened sulci, but only about 2% of the normal population.

　　Dr. Ernest Prelinger, a Yale psychologist, testified concerning testing he performed on Hinckley. With an I. Q. of 113, Hinckley could be classified as "bright normal." But on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Hinckley was near the peak of abnormality. According to Prelinger, only one person out a million with Hinckley's score would not be suffering from serious mental illness.

　　A complete showing of the movie Taxi Driver closed the defense case.

　　The prosecution, in its psychiatric evidence, attempted to shift the focus of the jury back to March 30, 1981. The government's lead expert, Dr. Park Dietz, put forward the diagnosis of the government's psychiatric team: Hinckley suffered from various personality disorders, but was not psychotic or insane. Essentially, Hinckley was a bored, spoiled, lazy, manipulative rich kid. The teams' report concluded:

　　Mr. Hinckley's history is clearly indicative of a person who did not function in a usual reasonable manner. However, there is no evidence that he was so impaired that he could not appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. Dietz had a contradictory interpretation of nearly every piece of a defense evidence. Hinckley's frequent flying showed an ability to make complex travel arrangements more than it did an insane obsession. His choice of Devestator bullets, his concealing of his handgun, and his timing of his assassination attempt showed planning. Hinckley imitated Travis Bickle much as would the fan of rock star——he didn't "absorb" his identity as the defense contended. Hinckley did not have an "obsession" with Foster, but only the sort of infatuation a young man might often have for a starlet. His bizarre writings were "fiction" that were "not that useful" in determining his mental state. Dietz testified that Hinckley viewed his actions on March 30 as successful. "It worked," Hinckley told Dietz in an interview. "You know, actually, I accomplished everything I was going for there. Actually, I should feel good because I accomplished everything on a grand scale……I didn't get any big thrill out of killing——I mean shooting——him. I did it for her sake……The movie isn't over yet."

　　After the testimony of another psychiatric expert, Dr. Sally Johnson, who confirmed Dietz's basic findings, Adelman announced, "Your honor, the prosecution rests."

　　Closing arguments contained moments of drama. Adelman, in the government's summation, strode back and forth in front of the jury with the actual gun used in the shootings as he shouted to the jurors, "This man shot down in the street James Brady, a bullet in his brain!" Defense attorney Vince Fuller's recounting of Hinckley's "pathetic" life left John crying at the defense table, his face in his hands, bent forward, and shaking.

　　Judge Barrington Parker ended eight weeks of evidence and arguments by reading his instructions to the jury. Most importantly, Parker told the jurors that the prosecution had the burden of showing beyond a reasonable doubt that Hinckley was not insane: that on March 30, 1981 he could appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions. Parker did not tell the jury should reach its conclusion by focusing solely on Hinckley's intellectual awareness of the wrongfulness of his action, as the prosecution suggested, or by some broader notion that included emotional appreciation of wrongfulness.

　　For over three days the jury deliberated Hinckley's fate. Finally, a verdict. Judge Parker asked the twenty-two year-old jury foreman to unseal the envelope containing the verdict and hand it to a clerk, who passed it to the judge. Parker read the verdict: "As to Count 1, Not Guilty by

Reason of Insanity. As to Count 2, Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity." The reading continued, the same verdict for each of the thirteen counts.

　　INSANITY DEFENSE REFORM IN THE TRIAL AFTERMATH

　　Within a month of the Hinckley verdict, the House and Senate were holding hearings on the insanity defense. A measure proposed by Senator Arlen Specter shifted the burden of proof of insanity to the defense. President Reagan expressed his support for the measure with the comment, "If you start thinking about even a lot of your friends, you would have to say, 'Gee, if I had to prove they were sane, I would have a hard job.' "

　　Joining Congress in shifting the burden of proof were a number of states. Within three years after the Hinckley verdict, two-thirds of the states placed the burden on the defense to prove insanity, while eight states adopted a separate verdict of "guilty but mentally ill," and one state (Utah) abolished the defense altogether.

　　In addition to shifting the burden in insanity cases, Congress also narrowed the defense itself. Legislation passed in 1984 required the defendant to prove a "severe" mental disease and eliminated the "volitional" or "control"aspect of the insanity defense. After 1984, a federal defendant has had to prove that the "severe" mental disease made him "unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts."

　　HINCKLEY AT ST. ELIZABETHS

　　Following his acquittal, John Hinckley was transferred to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington. He is entitled to his freedom once it is proved that he is n

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