Hinckley gives no evidence

Press, 4 June 1982, Page 6

Hinckley gives no evidence

NZPA-Reuter Washington

John Hinckley, jun., declined to give evidence on his own behalf yesterday and the defence rested its case in the presidential assailant’s six-week-old trial. “I have no intention now of taking the stand,” Hinckley, told United States District Judge Barrington Parker. He said he accepted the advice of his lawyers not to do so. The prospecution now will begin presenting witnesses to counter the defence claim that Hinckley was suffering from schizophrenia when he wounded President Reagan and three other men in front of a Washington hotel on March 30 last year. Hinckley has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. A defence psychiatrist, Daniel Weinberger, told the jury , earlier yesterday that computerised X-ray pictures of Hinckley’s brain' showed “cortical atrophy,” which means degeneration of some tissue and widening of the ridges of the brain surface. “The brain has shrunk,” he said, adding that such a symptom was highly unusual for someone Hinckley’s age and increased the likelihood that the defendant was schizophrenic. Hinckley’s lawyers have presented testimonny from

three psychiatrists and one psychologist who have diagnosed him as schizophrenic and therefore greatly out of touch with reality. The prosecution will now begin presenting its own expert witnesses to support its claim that Hinckley was not mentally deranged at the time of the shooting Dr Weinberger yesterday testified that it was seven to 10 times more likely that a CAT scan like that of Hinckley would be found in a. group of schizophrenics than in a group of normal people. CAT scans, or computerised axil tomography, are computer-enhanced X-rays of the brain which allow doctors to see thin cross-sections of the brain.

Dr Weinberger said that CAT scans like Hinckley’s would be found in only 2 per cent of the normal population Hinckley's age compared to about 15 per cent of those patients diagnosed as schizophrenics in mental hospitals. In one study he cited, the figure was. as high as 30 per cent.

Under cross-examination by the chief prosecutor, Roger Adelman, Dr Weinberger acknowledged that CAT scans alone could not be used to diagnose schizophrenia.