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Judge to lift all restrictions on man who shot President Reagan

A federal judge will lift all restrictions on John Hinckley Jr. next year if he remains mentally stable. Hinckley shot and injured President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — A federal judge says the man who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan four decades ago can be released unconditionally from the restrictions he's been living under next year if he remains mentally stable.

John Hinckley Jr. was 25 when he attacked the president. Jurors found him not guilty by reason of insanity.

Now he's 66, and he's been living in Williamsburg, Virginia, since leaving a Washington hospital five years ago.

Doctors oversee his medication and therapy. He can't have a gun and he can't travel far without informing his doctors. 

Hinckley's lawyer says he no longer poses a threat, but prosecutors opposed ending the restrictions.

U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman said Monday that he'll sign off on the plan this week. 

Credit: AP
FILE - In this March 30, 1981, file photo, Secret Service agent Timothy J. McCarthy, foreground, Washington policeman Thomas K. Delehanty, center, and presidential press secretary James Brady, background, lie wounded on a street outside a Washington hotel after shots were fired at U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Lawyers for John Hinckley Jr., the man who tried to assassinate Reagan, are scheduled to argue in court Monday, Sept. 27, 2021, that the 66-year-old should be freed from restrictions placed on him after he moved out of a Washington hospital in 2016. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds, File)

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