One can only imagine what President Ronald Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis went through when gunman John Hinckley nearly killed her dad 30 years ago. So it’s understandable that she’s quite upset about his unsupervised visits away from his mental hospital and that he could someday be released.
Hinckley benefits from being found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Hinckley is permitted to stay with his mother in Virginia 12 times a year for 10 days at a time, which allows him to remain out of confinement for a total of four months.
“There are times when the American legal system works brilliantly. There are times when it fails,” Davis, an avowed liberal, wrote in a
Time magazine essay.
“The story of John Hinckley should always include this: As far as the victims are concerned, he beat the legal system. He had wealthy parents who bought him a tenacious lawyer,” Davis added.