Schrank's Second Chance

John F. Schrank was a cooperative, even jovial, witness at his 1912 trial in Milwaukee on the charge of assault with intent to murder Theodore Roosevelt. He readily acknowledged his guilt. He denied that he was either insane or a Socialist. He explained that he had not tried to kill Theodore Roosevelt as a citizen, ex-President, or leader of the Progressive Party, but solely as someone who was a "menace to the country" through seeking a third term. "I shot Roosevelt as a warning to other third termers." He elaborated on his phobia that Roosevelt, if elected, would plunge the country into a civil war. By court order, he was remanded to a "lunacy commission" of five psychiatrists who concluded that his was a case of "dementia praecox, paranoid type" and unanimously recommended incarceration in the Wisconsin state asylum "until cured"--which everyone understood as meaning "for life." Schrank disagreed with the verdict, but thanked the doctors, shook their hands, and told them they had done as well as they could. (My sources for this are Edmund Morris, *Colonel Roosevelt*, p. 257, http://books.google.com/books?id=rFqO6zhPrCwC&pg=PT376 and Willard M. Oliver and Nancy E. Marion, *Killing the President: Assasinations, Attempts, and Rumored Attempts on US Commanders-In-Chief*, p. 80. http://books.google.com/books?id=FNbn8PLx5qAC&pg=PA80)

A guard escorting Schrank to the asylum by train noted him staring out at the passing fields, and asked Schrank if he liked to hunt. "Only Bull Moose," Schrank replied dryly. After arriving at the asylum and adjusting to his new surroundings, Schrank tried to bequeath his pistol and bullet to the New York Historical Society to be put on display there. He was upset when told that the bullet was still in Colonel Roosevelt's chest, shouting "That is my bullet!" For his part, TR insisted that "I have not the slightest feeling against him." The Colonel thought that the virulent anti-TR press had incited Schrank--whom he regarded as no more insane than Eugene Debs or Senator La Follette...

Anyway, Schrank on the whole lived a quiet life in the Wisconsin Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He received no letters and no visitors. Apart from a dislike of bathing, he seems to have been a model patient. In 1919, he expressed sorrow at the news of Theodore Roosevelt's death. Schrank died on September 15, 1943--the forty-second anniversary of the day in 1901 on which the slain William McKinley had appeared to him in a dream, pointing at Roosevelt and saying "This is my murderer, avenge my death."

Now, here is my what-if. I know this is very, very unlikely *but*:

What if sometime in the 1930's, when most of the country had long since forgotten about the 1912 shooting, Schrank actually manages to persuade the psychiatrists that he has indeed been cured--and gets released from the Central State Hopital? It is true that the psychiatrists, by themselves, could not free Schrank; the findings of the court, as read by Judge Backus in 1912, were: "The court now finds that the defendant, John Schrank, is insane, and therefore incapacitated to act for himself. It is therefore ordered and adjudged that the defendant, John Schrank, be committed to the Northern Hospital for the Insane, near Oshkosh, in the County of Winnebago, State of Wisconsin, until such time when he shall have recovered from such insanity, when he shall be returned to this court for further proceedings according to law." http://books.google.com/books?id=iEEVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA622 But suppose on Schrank's return to the court sometime in the 1930's, the judge agrees with the psychiatrists--that Schrank cannot be punished (since he was insane when he shot TR) and should no longer be hospitalized (since he has been cured) and should therefore be released? And suppose the appellate courts uphold him?

The freed Schrank may live a quiet life at first, but then in 1940--well, in OTL one of his few outbursts as a prisoner/patient was on hearing that Franklin D. Roosevelt was seeking a third term; he was heard to say that "if he was free, he would take a hand in the matter"... (Quoted in Morris, *Colonel Roosevelt,* p. 658.)
 
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