By David S. Jackson/Sacramento
 When he enters the courtroom, all conversation stops. Everyone
stares as the man accused of conducting an 18-year campaign of
terror as the Unabomber walks to his seat. Even the prosecutors
stop shuffling their papers to sneak a glance. But anyone
expecting the self-confident strut of a killer who once branded
his victims "dumb" and the FBI "a joke" will be disappointed.
Ted Kaczynski's courtroom demeanor is almost timid. From the way
he sits in his chair, hands folded, to the deferential behavior
he shows his attorneys, he moves with the exaggerated politeness
of a guest who doesn't quite know how to act in someone else's
home.
Behind that placid exterior, however, is a stubborn defiance
that could spell disaster for his defense. This week, as jury
selection got under way in Sacramento, Calif., for his trial on
federal charges of killing two men and seriously wounding two
others with package bombs, Kaczynski's defense strategy is in
turmoil. The first public sign of trouble was the Harvard
graduate's abrupt refusal to be examined by prosecution
psychiatrists. But Time has learned that he initially resisted
examination by even his own doctors. This stance might be
endorsed by the "Unabomber Manifesto," which denounces anyone
who attempts to "control human behavior," but it could seriously
jeopardize his attorneys' efforts to save his life. They had
planned to argue that Kaczynski suffers from paranoid
schizophrenia, which made him incapable of the intent necessary
for him to be held legally responsible for the crimes. But now
U.S. District Court Judge Garland Burrell Jr. is weighing a
prosecution request to bar all expert psychiatric testimony,
leaving his defense in tatters.
Historically, defendants who claim insanity or mental disease in
federal trials rarely succeed. But if the jury in this case is
allowed to hear details about paranoid schizophrenia, they may
see some disturbing parallels with Kaczynski's life. For
example, psychiatrists say true schizophrenics often resist
diagnosis. "They don't like to think of themselves as mentally
ill," says Dr. Ira Glick, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford.
"They'd think something else caused their problems, like bad
parenting or bad government or too many drugs--anything but
being labeled crazy." Kaczynski has lashed out at both his
parents and government.
The mystery illness that sent Kaczynski to the hospital when he
was only 10 months old could take on new significance. Some
researchers believe that schizophrenia could come from a virus
that strikes pregnant mothers and infants, causing brain damage
that usually doesn't become fully apparent until the teens or
early 20s. Kaczynski's family has said he was always an
antisocial child and that his behavior got worse as he got
older. At 26, he abruptly resigned from a prestigious teaching
post at the University of California, Berkeley, and dropped out
of society. The first Unabom attack occurred three days after
his 36th birthday.
Schizophrenia is an irreversible disease whose symptoms can be
curbed but not cured by drugs, according to experts. Is it
possible for someone to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia and
function for 18 years? Says Glick: "If you pull yourself out of
society, live alone and are not married or dating, you can go a
long time."
From their first contact with the FBI, the family warned that
Kaczynski had severe mental problems. And three months after his
arrest on April 3, 1996, at his mountainside cabin outside
Lincoln, Mont., family attorney Anthony Bisceglie cited
Kaczynski's mental illness as a reason the government should not
seek the death penalty. "In his correspondence, Ted projects his
own feelings of anger, depression and powerlessness onto society
at large--a society of which he has never really been a member,"
Bisceglie wrote lead prosecutor Robert Cleary. "He blames these
ill effects on a wide variety of external factors, including
childhood classmates, teachers and his family as well as the
media, chemical and electronic mind control, education, science
and technology.
For those who survived attacks by the Unabomber, the prospect of
a trial evokes feelings ranging from dread to relief. University
of Colorado engineering professor John Hauser, who was an Air
Force pilot and aspiring astronaut when he was injured in a May
1985 bombing at Berkeley, says the arrest of a suspect and the
halt to the bombings meant more to him than the trial. "If
having the trial over means that I could fly jets again and
pursue those paths, I'd say, 'Hey, great! Cool!'" he told TIME.
"But it's not going to bring my hand back or the use of my arm.
So the trial doesn't matter all that much. I'm not going to
regain what I've lost."
|
