THAT'S CRAZY

 On March 30 1981, John Hinckley, Jr., shot President Reagan, Press Secretary James Brady, Police Officer Thomas Delahanty, and Secret Service Agent Tim McCarthy. While the attempted assassination had wide ranging effects, perhaps the greatest and unexpected effect was on the US criminal legal system. 

The entire world saw Hinckley shoot the President, and yet, after a trial he was found  not guilty by reason of insanity. The verdict so inflamed the public that the insanity defense was forever altered, depriving thousands of mentally ill defendants of a traditional defense. 

After the Hinckley verdict, the insanity defense was changed by Congress and most states  after 85% of the American public opined that justice was not done in the Hinckley trial. The changes to the insanity defense included shifting the burden to the defendant, and raising the standard of proof so that now insanity meant suffering from a severe mental disease such that the defendant could not appreciate the nature and quality of the wrongfulness of his or her acts. In other words, if a defendant heard voices telling her to kill, so long as she knew the killing was wrong, she was not insane no matter what the voices told her to do.  Insanity was no longer just about the inability to form intent, it now meant that it had to be a total lack of understanding the nature and result of the actus reus. 

After the Hinckley case, insanity was nearly impossible to prove. The changes in the insanity law illustrate one of the most glaring examples of law being changed by public out cry and not sound policy. Insanity was nearly abolished to placate the American public who could not understand how Hinckley was acquitted.

 Rumpole's Rule #5: Bad trial facts  make bad law. 

In 1999 Hinckley was allowed to leave the hospital for supervised visits with his parents. In 2009 Hinckley was allowed to stay at his parents home for up to ten days at a time. In 2016 Hinckley was ordered released from the hospital because a judge agreed he no longer presented a danger to himself or others. In the last week, a Judge- with the consent of the Department of Justice-  ordered that within nine months all supervision of Hinckley will end. He will be a free man. 

In 2021 it is impossible to imagine a person shooting four people and receiving a sentence that does not include a mandatory life incarceration. And yet, for all the difficulties the Hinckley case has caused the criminal justice system and defendants, the final outcome shows that there is a much needed and absent concept of healing and redemption that is currently unthinkable (and nearly unobtainable) today . 

Rather than simply saying Hinckley's actions in shooting four people and killing one (James Brady died of his wounds 33 years later and his death was ruled a homicide) were inexcusable, they were all too excusable. Hinckley was a very sick and dangerous young man. But once hospitalized and treated, he was able to get better. He does not and did not deserve life in prison because the law in 1981 was such that since Hinckley was mentally ill, he was not capable of forming the criminal intent necessary to commit what we in Florida call attempted first degree murder. 

Unfortunately the result in the Hinckley case will remain one of the last of its kind. Any such act today would result in a life incarceration no matter how sick the defendant- because after the Hinckley case it is nearly impossible to prove insanity. And that is crazy.