Monday’s death of President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary James S. Brady has been ruled a homicide resulting from the gunshot wound he suffered in the assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981, more than three decades ago.
The ruling was made by the medical examiner’s office in Virginia, where Brady, 73, died in an Alexandria retirement community, and was announced Friday by Gwendolyn Crump, the D.C. police department’s chief spokeswoman.
There was no immediate word on whether the shooter, John W. Hinckley Jr., who has been treated at St. Elizabeths psychiatric hospital since his trial, could face new criminal charges. Hinckley, 59, was found not guilty by reason of insanity after he shot Reagan and three others on March 30, 1981.
But the decision to pronounce Brady’s death a homicide 33 years after he was wounded outside the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue NW raises questions about whether prosecutors can, and will, try to get around double jeopardy — the legal concept that protects a person from being tried twice for the same crime — and pursue a murder charge.
Isn’t charging John Hinckley with murder really overkill? Why on earth should Hinckley be charged with murder some 30 years after the fact? He has been incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital for over three decades. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity at the time. What are prosecutors hoping? He will be less insane? More insane? Even if he had been charged and convicted of murder, he might be eligible for freedom after 3o years.
Suggestion: Leave it alone. Recharging Hinckley just costs the taxpayer more money with very little end result. It seems to me that the medical examiner was acting out of political motivation. Had Hinckley shot anyone else, would the ME really declare a death a homicide after 30 some years? Probably not.
