Hinckley v. U.S., 97-3094

• Decision Date: 14 April 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-3094,97-3094
• Citation: 140 F.3d 277
• Parties: , 48 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1243 John W. HINCKLEY, Jr., Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 277

140 F.3d 277

329 U.S.App.D.C. 315, 48 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1243

John W. HINCKLEY, Jr., Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 97-3094.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued March 16, 1998.

Decided April 14, 1998.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 81cr00306-01).

Barry Wm. Levine argued the cause for appellant, with whom John T. Kotelly, Adam Proujansky and Sarah M. Mortenson were on the briefs.

Helen M. Bollwerk, Assistant United States Attorney, argued the cause for appellee, with whom Wilma A. Lewis, United States Attorney, John R. Fisher, Thomas J. Tourish, Jr., Robert R. Chapman, and Thomas E. Zeno, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief.

John M. Ferren, Corporation Counsel, Charles Reischel and Janet L. Maher, Deputy Corporation Counsel, and Maureen W. Zaniel, Assistant Corporation Counsel, were on the brief for amicus curiae District of Columbia.

Before: WALD, SILBERMAN and HENDERSON, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WALD.

Opinion concurring in the judgment filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

WALD, Circuit Judge:

John W. Hinckley, Jr., an insanity acquittee presently committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. ("Hospital"), filed a motion with the United States District Court seeking a conditional release under D.C.CODE ANN. § 24-301(k) (1981). This release would have permitted him to spend approximately one twelve-hour period per month in the community, with his parents but otherwise unsupervised. The Hospital did not support Hinckley's motion, and had already denied a similar request from him. The United States also opposed the motion. See United States v. Hinckley, 967 F.Supp. 557, 558-59 (D.D.C.1997). After a four-day evidentiary hearing, the district court, Judge June L. Green, found that Hinckley continues to present a danger to himself or others. It accordingly denied his motion for conditional release. See id. at 558.

In the present appeal, Hinckley argues that the district court's order should be vacated because, in a pre-hearing evidentiary ruling, the district court held that the deliberative process privilege shielded the discussion that took place between members of the Hospital's Review Board as they considered whether to support Hinckley's conditional release. Hinckley claims that this ruling prevented him from testing the propriety of the Review Board's ultimate decision (made before the present case began) to deny Hinckley a conditional release. We reject this argument and affirm the district court's opinion.

I. BACKGROUND

Hinckley attempted to assassinate then-President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981. In the process, he shot and wounded four people: Reagan, Presidential Press Secretary James Brady, Secret Service Agent Timothy McCarthy, and Metropolitan Police Officer Thomas Delahanty. At his criminal trial, Hinckley presented evidence that he was suffering from a mental disease and that his criminal actions were the result of that disease. On June 21, 1982, the jury found Hinckley not guilty by reason of insanity. The district court then committed Hinckley to St. Elizabeths Hospital, where he has remained to this day. See id.

During the course of his commitment, Hinckley has sought various forms of release from the U.S. District Court. All of these requests were either denied or withdrawn. In addition, in 1987 and 1988, the Hospital asked the district court to release Hinckley into the community under the supervision of Hospital staff, but subsequently withdrew those requests. See id.

The district court held a four-day hearing on Hinckley's present motion for conditional release. Hinckley presented five witnesses: two psychologists, two psychiatrists, and Hinckley's father. See id. Hinckley's four experts all testified that Hinckley suffers from a psychotic disorder and major depression, both of which are in remission, and from narcissistic personality disorder, which is active. They also testified that Hinckley would present a very low risk of danger to himself or others if the district court granted his request for conditional release. They further agreed that, if Hinckley had a recurrence of his prior active mental illnesses, any symptoms would develop slowly enough that they would be detectable before an unescorted visit. See id. at 559.

The United States presented one fact witness, Commander Jeanette Wick, and one expert psychiatrist, Dr. Raymond F. Patterson. See id. at 558. Wick, who is Chief Pharmacist at the Hospital, testified about her interactions with Hinckley. She stated that she first met Hinckley when she offered to lend him a book in late February or early March 1995. Wick testified that Hinckley then began making fairly frequent, and always unannounced, visits to her office. Over the course of these visits, Hinckley gave Wick audio tapes of music he had recorded, including one " 'love song' " that contained Wick's pet name for her daughter. Wick also discovered that Hinckley had been gathering information about her personal schedule with her daughter. Id. at 559.

This continued for about three weeks, until Wick's staff members told her that they believed she was spending too much time with Hinckley. Wick testified that she then informed Hinckley that he could not come to her office without calling first. Hinckley nonetheless continued to make unannounced visits, and Wick had to repeat her instruction. At that point, the Hospital pharmacy began to receive a high volume of hang up calls. When Wick answered the phone, Hinckley would identify himself as the caller. Wick testified that she reported these problems to Dr. Maureen Christian, Hinckley's therapist, and then began to avoid Hinckley completely. See id. at 559-60.

According to Wick's testimony, however, she had to file an incident report with the Hospital in September 1995 because Hinckley had disobeyed instructions by delivering a package to her. After the Hospital investigated, it imposed three restrictions on Hinckley: (1) Hinckley was prohibited from being in the general vicinity of the building in which Wick worked; (2) Hinckley could have no social relationship with Wick; and (3) whenever Hinckley planned to walk around the Hospital grounds, he had to tell a member of his treatment team what he was going to do and where he was going to be. See id. at 560.

Wick further testified that she now sees Hinckley on the third Monday of each month, when she attends a meeting in the Acute Care Hospital building. Wick stated that Hinckley is frequently standing in the lobby when she arrives, and described one such encounter that took place in March 1996: " '[Hinckley] glares at me. He stares at me. I guess the kids would say, he stares me down.... I went to the elevator, and as I went to the elevator, [Hinckley] re-situated himself so he could keep me in his line of vision apparently.' " Id.

The district court credited Wick's testimony, and found that Hinckley had offered no evidence to rebut it. See id.

The government's expert witness, Dr. Patterson, also testified. Patterson agreed with Hinckley's experts that Hinckley's psychotic disorder and major depression are in remission. However, he did not agree that Hinckley would not be dangerous to himself or others if allowed to have unaccompanied visits in the community with his parents. See id. Here, Patterson cited a number of factors. Patterson explained:

"The last time Mr. Hinckley was in the Community, unattended or unsupervised, the risk of dangerousness was extremely high. That was 16 years ago. Therefore, you have to consider past history and what factors went into his having committed that offense, and his subsequent improvement as observed by hospital staff and as reported by himself and by others, and the psychological testing that demonstrates some improvements in some areas and some concerns that some very core personality issues remain unchanged."

Id. Patterson also based his opinion on Hinckley's "relationship" with Wick, stating that it bore some " 'striking similarities to the 'relationship' ... that he had with Ms. [Jodie] Foster' " and raised questions about whether Hinckley was obsessively infatuated with Wick. Id. at 560-61. The doctor stated that Hinckley's behavior toward Wick was significant because of Hinckley's history of stalking people, including President Carter, President Reagan, and Jodie Foster. Patterson described this past stalking as ultimately leading to Hinckley's assassination attempt on Reagan. See id. at 561.

But, in the district court's judgment, Patterson's description of Hinckley's past and continued propensity for deception and secretiveness, especially with respect to those responsible for treating him, was the most important factor that the doctor cited. Patterson observed that Hinckley's treatment team did not know about his "relationship" with Wick until nearly six months after the two had met. Patterson believed that this was consistent with Hinckley's history, including the failure of several mental health professionals who were treating Hinckley prior to his assassination attempt to detect Hinckley's psychosis and the failure of the Hospital on several occasions during Hinckley's commitment to detect behavior that represented continuing symptoms of his mental illness. See id. As Patterson elaborated:

"There have been in the Mid-'80's, let's say in '83 to '88, a number of situations where Mr. Hinckley has not told people that are his treaters what he's actually thinking or doing. They relate to collecting pictures of Jodie Foster. They relate to requesting a nude caricature of Jodie Foster. Even up into the day before a hearing on the matter, Mr. Hinckley stat[ed] that it had no sexual content, was not nude.

They relate to his writing Ted Bundy, his writings about Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson. And none of his treaters knew that from Mr....