Hinckley's Life

A lawsuit asks for $14 million

Late in March 1981, JoAnn Hinckley drove her son John to the Denver airport and told him not to come home again. A few days later, John Hinckley shot and wounded President Reagan, along with Presidential Press Secretary James Brady, Secret Service Agent Timothy McCarthy and D.C. Police Officer Thomas Delahanty. At the trial last May, Mrs. Hinckley said she threw her son out as part of a plan devised by John's psychiatrist, John Hopper Jr., to force him to be less dependent on his parents. Hopper testified that he did not consider his young patient mentally ill and never thought there was much "cause for concern."

Last week Brady, McCarthy and Delahanty joined in a $14 million suit against Hopper. Filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, it contends that the psychiatrist misdiagnosed Hinckley as having only minor problems and rejected his parents' suggestions that he be institutionalized. They had a dozen sessions in his Evergreen, Colo., office, the final one a month before the shootings. The suit charges that the doctor failed to warn police of "the reasonable likelihood that Hinckley would attempt a political assassination," despite Hinckley's admission that his "mind was on the breaking point." Hinckley, judged innocent by reason of insanity, is confined at a federal mental hospital in Washington.

Paul Smith, a lawyer for the American Psychiatric Association, said that there is a precedent of sorts for such a lawsuit. The Supreme Court of California has held that a psychiatrist can be held liable for the actions of patients where a specific threat could be identified. Says Smith: "A jury would decide whether or not a reasonable psychiatrist would have done more to protect society than this guy did." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.