John Hinckley Jr., who gained notoriety in the 1980s for an attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, remains committed in a Washington D.C. hospital. Hinckley sought conditional hospital release which would allow him to spend unsupervised time in the community .The Hospital Review Board did not support conditional release. The District Court found Hinckley too dangerous and denied the request. On appeal, Hinckley contended that the district court erred in holding that the deliberative process privilege (which protects agency decision making discourse) protected discussions of the Hospital Review Board in considering whether to support Hinckley's request for conditional release. Hinckley claimed that he should have been permitted to test the propriety of these discussions and that the court's ruling prevented him from doing so.
The lower court heard testimony from several experts, some of whom testified that Hinckley suffers from psychotic disorders which are currently in remission. Testimony was heard that Hinckley would present a very low risk of danger to himself or others if the court granted his request. The state presented a witness who testified to the effect that Hinckley was stalking her. Commander Jeanette Wick testified that Hinckley had gathered information about her personal schedule, recorded love songs for her and when ordered not to contact her, disobeyed the order by sending her a package. The state also presented an expert who testified that Hinckley's psychotic disorders were in remission but that Hinckley was still dangerous. The expert based his opinion on Hinckley's "relationship" with Wick, stating that it was strikingly similar to the "relationship" he had with Jodie Foster.
Holding: Affirmed. The appellate court found no grounds for vacating the lower court decision. The court found that the lower court did not even rely on the Hospital Review Board's decision and that even if it had, its decision on deliberative process privilege was correct.
 | Stuart Fischoff, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology California State University |
Dr. Fischoff comments: A would-be political assassin who is also a celebrity stalker is no latter day John Wilkes Boothe. The key differences concern the motivation for and the symbolic value of the attempted assassin.
There are various categories of celebrity stalkers, each theoretically distinguished by their motivation to stalk. John Hinckley, Jr. is an Identity-Seeking celebrity stalker. In general, Identity-Seeking celebrity stalkers seek a self-identity through either their actions or their fantasized, often (but not exclusively) electronic relationships with targets. All actions are ultimately designed to fill the bottomless personality void, designed to bring public and media attention to someone who is a social or psychological isolate, whose poor social skills place normal relationships and normal, recognized achievements out of psychological reach.
Because stalkers like Hinckley are motivated by a delusion that they have or can forge a relationship with a celebrity and thereby gain an identity for themselves, the particular celebrity's attributes are comparatively less important than their celebrity status itself.
Hinckley's erotomanic obsession with Jodie Foster was one which could not be consummated in a realistic relationship. In his social calculus, what was needed was an accomplishment that would bring to him some measure of celebrity. Then the possibility of enticing Jodie Foster could unfold on some equal playing field--celebrity to celebrity.
But to what end? Research shows that even if the stalkers are successful in their pursuit of a celebrity, they have no realistic or meaningful agenda at the ready. The chase is all and it is the process, not the outcome, that drives the engine and gives the stalker's anemic sense of self some momentary transfusion. Consequently, stalkers like Hinckley are the most likely to transfer targets of obsession if the strategy to gain the connection with a targeted celebrity fails to reach fruition. But it is the strategy that an Identity-Seeking stalker employs before ultimately switching targets that speaks volumes and can write history.
Hinckley's assassination attempt was an act of instrumental rather than passion-based violence. It was motivated, not by ideology or social cause, but by attention-getting needs connected to an object of love-fixated obsession, someone whose connection to politics was a serendipitous quirk of Hollywood casting. The exact target of his aggressive behavior could have been someone of any political stripe so long as they were important in or to society. Recall that Hinckley first staked out Jimmy Carter and only then settled on Ronald Reagan when access to Carter eluded him.
The motivations for and machinations behind Hinckley's obsessions and instrumental violence speak directly to his capacity for rehabilitation. Hinckley's psychological examiners suggest his disorder is in remission. Remission is a term, which often erroneously suggests there is some sort of "cure" in process.
In many ways Hinckley is a high-functioning, non-schizophrenic psychotic who is capable of putting together all the pieces necessary to accomplish any goal he desires, whether to find a new target to stalk or be released from the hospital on a furlough. Were he possessed of a more disordered mind, there would be far less to worry about.
Hinckley's condition is not curable, it is merely containable with proper supervision and stress management. Consequently, he will always be a threat to society. With psychotic celebrity stalkers like John Hinckley, Jr., the past is inexorably prologue.
