Reagan Daughter Angry Over Shooter Hinckley's Lax Treatment

It's a fairly quaint and serene picture Patti Davis paints of a man with an almost picturesque life. That man strolls around and feeds stray cats, spends time at the beach and bowling allies, and even basks in the sun while reading and playing guitar. Thoughts of a French aristocrat may come to mind. Until you realize that Davis used to be Patti Reagan, and she's writing about the man who tried to kill her father, Ronald.

In a fascinating, yet chilling, story in this month's TIME Magazine, Davis explains that one of the world's most infamous would-be assassins, John W. Hinckley, Jr., lives a surprisingly relaxed life these days at St. Elizabeth's Mental Hospital in Virginia -- where he was sentenced to stay after being found not guilty on the grounds of insanity. But increasingly Hinckley has been granted more freedoms, and as Davis writes, it is a painful realization considering his deranged actions have affected so many.

Take the family of Jim Brady, former White House press secretary who suffered a brain injury after being shot by Hinckley:

"But there were other victims too," Sarah Brady tells me now, so many years later but so close to the wound. "Our son Scott was 2 years old then. The first time I took him to the hospital to see his father, Jim wailed — that awful sound he'd started making — and it frightened Scott so much, it was years before he felt comfortable around Jim."

Jim Brady is now almost completely blind. He has spinal stenosis. Both are secondary conditions resulting from the bullet that tore into his brain 30 years ago. For the past year, he's been screaming in his sleep. Every night. Sarah doesn't know if he's having nightmares about the shooting, but she thinks it's likely.

Davis juxtaposes that with Hinckley's life, who may soon get a driver's license, already gets to go on unsupervised visits to his mother's house for days at a time, and who stands to get a job outside the hospital:

Since 2000, Hinckley has been allowed unsupervised visits off hospital grounds. It began with overnight stays at his parents' house in Williamsburg, Va. Despite the government's objections and its argument that Hinckley still has a "narcissistic need" to impress women — a need that could again lead to violence — U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman has consistently sided with Hinckley's attorney, Barry Levine, and granted more and more freedom to the man who once called his assassination attempt "the greatest love offering in the history of the world."

Hinckley is now allowed to visit his mother in Williamsburg (his father is deceased) for 10-day stays 12 times a year. He's been given permission to obtain a driver's license and get a job. He reportedly does volunteer work in the library at the state mental hospital in Williamsburg. He's required to stay at his mother's house and to always be accompanied by her or a sibling when he goes out. (His mother is 85, and his siblings live in Dallas.) He must carry a GPS-enabled cell phone. Hinckley has expressed his wish to someday settle down in Williamsburg.

According to Davis, it's all part of a slow plan to eventually secure Hinckley's permanent freedom, an idea that's not far fetched: "because Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity, the law states, if it is determined that he is sane, no danger to himself or others, he must be set free."

Maybe the picture of a French aristocrat isn't that far off after all.

Read Davis's entire story from TIME.