NEW YORK (CTV) — What becomes of a man who wakes up one morning and embarks on a mission to take the life of a U.S. president — a man who, in his unsuccessful attempt to murder Ronald Reagan, wounds the former president, press secretary James Brady and two law enforcement officers? A reasonable guess would be that John Hinckley Jr. is trapped in a life of misery, void of light and hope. This guess is within reason — but it's also quite wrong.

Almost two decades after his assasination attempt on the morning of March 30, 1981, Hinckley spends his days on a 336-acre estate lined with trees and 170 varieties of plants. He is also living a real-life love story with a fiancee, Leslie deVeau. Not bad, some would say, for a would-be presidential assassin.

Why doesn't Hinckley's lifestyle appear to be adequately dreary and hopeless — proper punishment for someone who tried to kill the president? Because, as his lawyer, Barry Levine, said earlier this year, because of Hinckley's acquittal, he "is a patient, not a prisoner."

Hinckley was acquitted by reason of insanity in the attack outside a Washington hotel. Since his 1982 acquittal, he has been confined to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington D.C — a hospital whose beauty is considered a part of the treatment for its patients.

Hinckley has made only one trip to the outside world since he was committed: he left the grounds in 1986 for a Christmas dinner. After this visit, his lawyers had trouble arranging another visit. However, in January, 1999, an appeals court ruled that Hinckley could make supervised day-trips away from the hospital. His doctors claim that these visits will help Hinckley along his road to recovery.

This court decision was made despite opposition from federal prosecutors who claim Hinckley is still dangerous and unpredictable. With this recent ruling, doctors now have the power to decide if and when Hinckley leaves to visit his family.

Another person Hinckley fought for the right to visit is his fiancee, Leslie deVeau. Hinckley and deVeau met at St. Elizabeth's where deVeau was also committed — for fatally shooting her ten year old daughter while the little girl slept. After killing her child, deVeau tried to take her own life. The disturbed mother was found insane and eventually sent to St. Elizabeth's. In 1990, after a successful petition of the courts, deVeau was released from supervision because her condition had improved greatly.

deVeau described her first encounter with Hinckley in an interview with The New Yorker. She recalls John approaching her at a Halloween party in the men's ward of St. Elizabeth's saying, "I'd ask you to dance if I danced." He introduced himself to deVeau, who up to that point didn't know who John Hinckley was.

In 1991, Hinckley was permitted to walk unsupervised around hospital grounds. He and deVeau began taking walks without escorts and it was on these one-hour strolls that the couple started making plans for a future together.

A potentially damaging blow to their relationship and Hinckley's claim that he was getting better was a friendship between Hinckley and a hospital pharmacist. According to The New Yorker magazine, some say Jeannette Wick resembles Jodie Foster, the actress Hinckley claimed he was trying to impress when he shot Reagan. Hinckley allegedly took his friendship with Wick too far, constantly visiting and calling the pharmacist. When she told him to stay away, he complied. However, when he delivered a package to her office against her wishes, she filed an official incident report.

There was an investigation of the relationship and, in the end, Hinckley's version of the relationship was accepted. The issue, however, has not been completely resolved. It was used against him in 1997 when federal prosecutors stopped a Christmas visit between Hinckley and his family because officials claimed he still had the same personality problems that led to his attempt on the president's life.

But that was then. He is currently living in a minimum-security ward, ready and able, legally speaking, to venture out, and show the world how much he's changed.

While Hinckley was able to use an insanity defense to obtain his relatively comfortable lifestyle, his successful insanity plea sparked a mini-revolution in the way courts handle insanity claims. Federal statutes and laws in several states were rewritten to tighten the standards for insanity and restrict the use of the defense. In federal and some state courts, the burdern of proof of insanity shifted from the prosecution to the defense. Other states eliminated the insanity defense altogether. To address public concern that truly insane people who had committed, or tried to commit, heinous crimes would be released only to endanger others again, some states created review boards. The boards, which function similar to parole boards, oversee treatment and set the terms of hospitalization.

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