By David S. Jackson /Sacramento
Ted Kaczynski has one big problem: he is apparently too crazy to
appreciate how crazy he is, but not crazy enough to be legally
insane. The defense strategy for his trial, which began this
week, had appeared to be set. His lawyers had planned to argue
that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, which made him
incapable of forming the intent to commit a premeditated crime.
But paranoid schizophrenics typically resist being labeled
mentally ill, and Kaczynski proved to be all too typical. On
Dec. 18 he wrote a letter to complain to U.S. District Judge
Garland Burrell Jr., who quickly summoned Kaczynski and his
lawyers to his chambers to discuss Kaczynski's "concerns." The
Harvard-educated defendant, it turned out, wanted to represent
himself. After two days of talks, attorney Judy Clarke announced
that the problem had been resolved, but the defense strategy was
shattered. Last week Clarke and lead attorney Quin Denvir filed
a terse, one-sentence notice saying they no longer planned to
argue that their client was mentally ill. Says University of
Chicago law professor Albert Alschuler: "If he doesn't want to
raise a mental-defect defense, he doesn't have to."
Kaczynski's attorneys have good reason to be worried. This week
the prosecution will begin showing the eight-woman, four-man
jury what FBI agents found in April 1996 when they raided
Kaczynski's Montana cabin. The list of exhibits includes the
fully-armed bomb found at the shack, bomb-making parts and
chemicals, carbon copies of the Unabomber's manifesto and
taunting letters to his victims and the news media. There are
also thousands of pages of diaries and journals that Kaczynski
kept for more than two decades. Written in English, Spanish and
sometimes code (which was deciphered using a key found in the
cabin), the journals are filled with the methodical observations
of a man driven to kill his enemies by building the perfect
bomb. Prosecutors describe the entries as nothing less than a
long, detailed confession to every bomb the Unabomber sent. Such
entries as "I intend to start killing people" and "I came back
to the Chicago area...so that I could more safely attempt to
murder a scientist, businessman, or the like" show why
prosecutors believe Kaczynski deserves to be executed.
The prosecution's confidence in its case led to the collapse of
another defense effort: pleading guilty to save Kaczynski's
life. The plea was sent along to Washington by the Special
Attorney Robert Cleary in Sacramento, and after several weeks of
consideration, Attorney General Janet Reno and the Justice
Department rejected it. Said a high-ranking department official:
"This man is a cold-blooded killer. Read his writing."
Kaczynski's brother David, who turned him in, claims that the
government should have fully investigated his mental state,
including interviewing the family, before deciding on the death
penalty. The Justice official insisted that the defendant's
mental state was considered but added, "Any serial killer is
nuts. Does that mean they should all be spared the death
penalty?" Prosecutors say Kaczynski has continually refused to
be examined by their psychiatrists--and that such behavior is
typical not so much of paranoid schizophrenics but of malingerers.
Although his lawyers have not claimed that Kaczynski is
incompetent to stand trial, they still believe, despite their
shift in strategy, that he is psychotic. But the particular
illness he has poses problems for them. People with paranoid
schizophrenia are often able to function relatively normally.
Indeed, no one watching the neatly dressed former Berkeley
professor scribbling notes and conferring with his attorneys
would say he looks insane. Insanity, the most obvious defense,
was never an option because it would have required Kaczynski's
lawyers to argue that he either did not know what he was doing
or did not know it was wrong. And unfortunately for them, the
coolly calculating diary entries and the Unabomber's ability to
evade detection and taunt authorities for so many years
effectively ruled that out.
So now, in the likely event that Kaczynski is convicted, the
defense's plan is to wait for the sentencing phase of the trial
and raise his mental condition as a mitigating factor. His
brother and mother will then take the stand and tell how his
aberrant behavior goes all the way back to childhood. With a
little bit of luck, the jury may show some mercy. Kaczynski will
probably not like all the talk about mental illness then any
more than he does now. But at that point his lawyers will be
engaged in a last-ditch effort to save his life. Their only hope
is that he will let them do their job. --With reporting by Viveca
Novak /Washington
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