Unabomber

IN THE END, the mad bomber who insisted his acts were rational did something that made sense. Theodore J. Kaczynski pleaded guilty. By doing so, he avoided the death sentence that a jury might be reluctant to impose on someone diagnosed as mentally ill.The plea saved the nation from having to relive his insanity in an expensive courtroom spectacle in which Kaczynski was likely to clash with his own lawyers. Testimony could only lead to the same conclusion: He did it.The Unabomber's mayhem began in May 1978.

STRANGE as it may seem, America owes Theodore J. Kaczynski a debt of gratitude. By pleading guilty to murder charges, the Unabomber has spared us all the sorry spectacle of a murder trial in which the defendant is opined to be a paranoid schizophrenic and at the same time competent to face a jury.The Kaczynski trial was shaping up as yet another travesty of justice, no less a media circus than the criminal prosecution of O. J. Simpson and, even more to the point, the Long Island Rail Road shooter, Colin Ferguson.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The sudden end to the Unabomber case with the guilty plea entered by Theodore J. Kaczynski threatens to leave many questions hanging that otherwise might have been answered during a trial.With Kaczynski agreeing to a life sentence in prison without the possibility of release in exchange for his guilty plea to three bombing murders and the maiming of two other people, a full airing of the mountain of evidence assembled by the FBI will not occur.Some partial answers might be provided when the Justice Department files its sentencing memorandum before U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. sentences Kaczynski May 15."

Theodore J. Kaczynski doesn't like his lawyers. And because of that, the Unabomber suspect's murder trial, one of the highest-profile federal trials of the year, was stopped as it was poised to begin in Sacramento, Calif., Monday.Kaczynski -- brilliant, perhaps mentally ill and accused in a 17-year-long string of bombings -- spoke out in court just as Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. took the bench. For three days, the trial was stalled as his dispute with his attorneys over defense tactics commanded the court's attention in closed-door hearings.

When U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. had questions for jury candidates in the trial of Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski, he would sometimes step down from the grand elevation of the bench to talk to potential jurors at their eye level.It is a practice rarely seen in the staid federal court. But it is not unusual in Burrell's Sacramento, Calif., courtroom, where the judge presides in a gentlemanly manner meant to preserve decorum while putting people at ease."He wants the jurors to be comfortable and doesn't want them to feel he's above them," says Sacramento lawyer Donald Heller.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Lawyers for Theodore J. Kaczynski abandoned their effort yesterday to argue that he suffers from a "mental defect" during the guilt phase of his trial on Unabomber charges.The action was a victory for prosecutors, who have been working to bar the defense argument that Kaczynski is a delusional paranoid schizophrenic. The prosecutors asserted that the argument should be barred because Kaczynski refused to be examined by government psychiatrists.But if Kaczynski is convicted, the defense could still assert during a penalty phase of the trial that he should not be executed because his mental illness provides a mitigating explanation for his actions.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The jurors who are to determine whether Theodore J. Kaczynski was the Unabomber and, if he was, whether he should be put to death expressed conservative attitudes that seem to reflect those of the small towns and midsized cities of this region.Nine women and three men were selected as jurors yesterday, after more than a month of jury selection.Because all jurors in capital cases must be willing to impose a death sentence, there are no ardent opponents of the death penalty on the jury.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- David Kaczynski, who turned in his brother as the suspected Unabomber, said in an interview Friday that he had been misled by investigators and prosecutors into believing that they saw Theodore J. Kaczynski as a mentally ill man who would "be happier in jail."David Kaczynski spoke bitterly about what he described as a cynical reversal by the government, as his brother's psychiatric condition has become the central issue at his trial for four of the string of bombings that began in 1978.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- To the government, Unabomber suspect Theodore J. Kaczynski is a meticulous terrorist who spent years refining his deadly bombs and keeping "lab notes" ** on his work.Defense lawyers, however, will counter with a different portrait of the man whose murder trial begins with jury selection here Wednesday: They will describe a paranoid schizophrenic, a man whose illness leaves him incapable of intending, by legal definition, to harm anyone.It is, trial analysts say, a risky defense strategy -- but perhaps the best available in a case that has the government promising to fill a federal courtroom with evidence linking Kaczynski to the crimes of the Unabomber.

LINCOLN, Mont. -- Lincoln's most famous resident goes on trial for murder in Sacramento, Calif., next week -- raising fears here that this remote town might be in for 15 more annoying minutes of fame as the nation watches the case of Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski."