Lawyer, Prosecutors Clash Over Reagan Shooter's Release

The man who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981 should be released from a mental hospital, his lawyer argued in federal court on Tuesday, while prosecutors said he should only be freed under tight restrictions. John Hinckley Jr., who shot Reagan and three others, no longer suffers from the personality disorder that led him to try to kill the president, his attorney Barry Levine said during final arguments of a hearing in U.S. District Court. Hinckley, who turns 60 this month, spends 17 days a month at his mother's home in Williamsburg, Virginia. He spends the rest of the time at Saint Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, where he was institutionalized in 1982 after a jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity.