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Jurors say hinckleys no threat { November 26 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14516-2003Nov25.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14516-2003Nov25.html
Jurors Say Hinckley's No Threat
Hospital Staff to Outline Possible Unguarded Visits
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 26, 2003; Page B01
Two jurors who helped decide John W. Hinckley Jr.'s fate more than 21 years ago -- and reluctantly agreed to give him a chance at future freedom -- said they support his bid to leave a psychiatric hospital on unsupervised outings.
George Blyther, 60, a retired Labor Department branch chief, and Woodrow Johnson, 70, a retired garage attendant, said they are confident that Hinckley is no longer a serious risk after more than two decades of therapy and treatment after his attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan.
"Do I think he's a threat to society, as far as coming out for unsupervised visits? No," Blyther said. "There has been plenty of time for proper treatment and rehabilitation. He can handle it."
Johnson, who weighed in on the much-debated question while minding his grandchildren at his longtime Southeast Washington home, agreed. "I feel like he deserves a chance," he said. "After all this time, he should be in another state of mind by now."
But Glynis T. Lassiter, another member of the Hinckley jury, expressed doubts. "If he did it once, there's a chance he could do it again," said Lassiter, 64, a retired American University custodian who lives in Raleigh, N.C. "I'm not so sure it's a good idea."
The jurors were interviewed by The Washington Post in recent days, in the midst of hearings in federal court to decide whether Hinckley, 48, should be cleared to make short, unsupervised visits to see his elderly parents in the Washington area and at their Williamsburg home. A fourth juror declined to comment, and others on the panel either did not return telephone messages or could not be located for comment.
U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman is scheduled to resume the hearings today by summoning officials from St. Elizabeths Hospital to provide information about how they would handle the outings, which would mark Hinckley's first trips from the Southeast Washington facility without a staff escort.
The March 30, 1981, shooting outside the Hilton Washington injured Reagan, his press secretary and two law enforcement officers. Hinckley has been confined at St. Elizabeths since June 1982, when Blyther, Lassiter, Johnson and nine other jurors found him not guilty by reason of insanity.
Although the eight-week trial took place 21 years ago, the three men's mental inventory of the evidence presented and even the private verbal battles waged among jurors remain remarkably detailed. They remember with unease and frustration the public anger unleashed when they announced their verdict.
"Oh, we got a lot of criticism," Lassiter said. "But that was the decision we had to make."
Many in Washington officialdom vilified the decision, calling the verdict "outrageous." At least one juror at the time countered that the criticism was poorly veiled racism, aimed at the mostly black jury. Republican members of Congress asked aloud whether the jury would have seen fit to punish Hinckley if Reagan had died, and others proposed legislation to make it harder to mount an insanity defense.
But the jurors said the verdict was almost ensured when U.S. District Court Judge Barrington D. Parker instructed them to answer one question: Could prosecutors prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hinckley was sane at the time of the shooting -- in other words, able to follow the law and understand he was doing something wrong? Psychiatrists called by the defense testified that Hinckley's mental illness was severe.
Although many jurors called the insanity verdict inevitable, the 45 days in court leading up to it were filled with simmering tensions. The jury began its work as strangers with divergent views and backgrounds: seven women and five men, 11 blacks and one white, one janitor and one PhD. Some viewed the lone white juror, Merryanna Swartz, suspiciously, Blyther and Johnson said.
And there were sparks when fellow jurors questioned Maryland Copelin, a D.C. elementary school cafeteria worker, and Nathalia Brown, a Pepco repairwoman, about their legal basis for deciding Hinckley needed to be punished. The two women complained later that they'd been pressured into the insanity verdict. The deliberations took 24 hours, over four days.
"We would tell them from time to time, 'Hey, we're not here to express our personal views but to consider the evidence.' We would ask, 'How do you come to that conclusion based on the evidence?' " Blyther said. "But there was no arm-twisting."
In light of that history, the disagreement about what to do with Hinckley touches familiar themes.
"If the Secret Service follows him everywhere, maybe it would be all right," Lassiter said. "Otherwise, no way."
Blyther views the Bush administration's opposition to Hinckley's request as "purely political," adding, "I can understand them trying to stop it, but it has nothing to do with reality or the risk involved."
Hinckley's current doctor says that he has not shown any symptoms of the psychosis and violent personality disorders that led him to think that shooting Reagan would somehow impress actress Jodie Foster. In recent years, he has left the hospital grounds with a medical escort for hundreds of outings to bookstores, bowling alleys, restaurants and other places, sometimes joined by his parents, John and Jo Ann, who have said that his condition has vastly improved. The Secret Service monitors him whenever he leaves the grounds.
Over the past two decades, all three former jurors have imagined the what-ifs of Hinckley's assault. Johnson wonders whether Reagan or others might have died if Hinckley had not sold his larger-caliber gun before coming to Washington. Blyther ponders whether authorities would have spotted Hinckley's mental problems sooner if he had been poor and black instead of affluent and white.
At least one juror said she wants no part in publicly reliving the case. At the time of the trial, Swartz, then 31, had worked with disturbed youths in Washington and done research for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. She said she "respectfully" declined to comment on the question of Hinckley's liberties or the historic trial that paved the way for them.
While Johnson and Blyther support Hinckley's limited forays into the public, they're not sure the country -- or they -- ever would endorse his complete release.
History might be a guide. Since the country was founded, three people have been found not guilty by reason of insanity after trying to assassinate a president or presidential candidate, government witness Raymond F. Patterson told the judge last week.
House painter Richard Lawrence, who tried to kill Andrew Jackson in 1835 with a musket, was moved in 1855 to the city facility that later would be called St. Elizabeths. John F. Schrank shot then-candidate Theodore Roosevelt in the chest in 1912 and also was confined to St. Elizabeths. Both men died inside the hospital walls. Hinckley is the third in the group.
"My point is that the event that brings Mr. Hinckley to St. Elizabeths Hospital is rare," said Patterson, the hospital's former forensics chief. "Very rare."
Staff researchers Bobbye Pratt and Margaret Smith contributed to this report.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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