Unabomber Suspect’s Trial Delayed a Year

A federal judge Friday decided that the murder-by-bombing trial of Unabomber suspect Theodore J. Kaczynski should begin next Nov. 12, more than 19 months after his arrest.

In urging caution in setting a trial date, Quin Denvir, one of Kaczynski’s attorneys, cited the thousands of documents defense lawyers must review, including an inch-thick FBI comparison of Kaczynski’s letters to his family with the writings of the elusive Unabomber.

“It is just a huge case. It is just a monster case . . . like a huge anti-trust case,” Denvir told Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. during a 75-minute status conference in a courtroom packed with reporters and other spectators.

For the first time since he was arraigned five months ago, Kaczynski was present in court, looking very different from the disheveled hermit arrested in April at his remote Montana cabin. He was dressed in a natty, light-brown sport coat and open-collar white shirt. His gray-flecked beard and brownish hair were neatly trimmed.

When he walked into the courtroom, Kaczynski smiled, shook hands with his lawyers and took a seat at the defense table. Kaczynski, who was driven a few blocks from the county jail in a heavily guarded motorcade, listened intently to the proceedings and sometimes chatted with one of his lawyers.

Denvir said there was nothing unusual about his client’s appearance. “It’s just Kaczynski dressing to come to court,” he told reporters.

A 10-count indictment in June charged the 54-year-old former UC Berkeley mathematics professor with four bombings, including deadly attacks on a Sacramento computer store owner and a Capitol timber industry lobbyist. He was flown from Montana to Sacramento, where he pleaded not guilty. Since then he has remained in the county jail.

“All I know is that he’s been kept in what people might refer to humorously as a suite, an isolated area, away from other prisoners,” U.S. Marshal Jerry Enomoto said in an interview.

Kaczynski is not charged with murder because there is no general charge of murder in federal law. Nonetheless, the indictment allows Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to decide whether Kaczynski should face the death penalty.

Standing in the mist outside the courthouse after Friday’s hearing, Assistant U.S. Atty. Robert Cleary told reporters he hopes that the government will make such a determination by the end of the year.

Choosing his words carefully, Cleary refused to say whether he was disappointed that Burrell had scheduled the trial for Nov. 12. Cleary had told the judge he would be ready to go to trial as soon as May 27.

In court, Cleary pressed Burrell to set a trial date, saying it was important for witnesses and lawyers to be able to anchor their lives around a fixed date.

Defense attorneys urged Burrell to wait until June before scheduling the trial.

Burrell also scheduled dates for various motions in the case, among them a March deadline for defense lawyers to file a motion to suppress evidence taken by FBI agents from Kaczynski’s shack.

Kaczynski is scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 10, via a closed-circuit television hook-up, on charges in the bombing death of a New Jersey advertising executive.