Judge Orders Writing Samples From Kaczynski

Citing “the need for accuracy in the truth-finding process,” a federal magistrate Wednesday ordered Unabomber suspect Theodore J. Kaczynski to provide writing samples so prosecutors can compare them with journals seized at his Montana cabin.

Magistrate Gregory G. Hollows agreed to the prosecution’s request for writing samples because of their potential importance to the government’s case against the former UC Berkeley mathematics professor.

In ordering Kaczynski to provide the samples, the magistrate noted that handwritten documents found inside Kaczynski’s cabin in Montana were “perhaps the critical evidence in this case.” Prosecutors assert that the documents include “important and direct admissions” of actions related to the bombings, the magistrate said in his order.

Kaczynski’s lawyers had previously agreed that about 800 pages of handwritten letters from their client to his family were, in fact, written by Kaczynski. The letters should be enough to identify Kaczynski’s handwriting, the lawyers had argued, saying that providing more samples was putting their client in the position of assisting the government in making its case.

However, Hollows said that during a trial a jury would find freshly produced, specific samples of phrases and sentences to be more help in reaching a verdict.

The magistrate said that within 30 days, Kaczynski must provide samples at the Sacramento County Jail, where he is awaiting trial. Hollows said Kaczynski is to reproduce typed phrases or sentences on government-issued paper “and with government-issued writing implements in his own, undisguised handwriting or hand printing.”

Kaczynski, 54, is charged in two fatal explosions in Sacramento, one in 1985, the other in 1995. The attacks are believed by the government to be part of a 17-year reign of violence that triggered one of the most intense manhunts in U.S. history before Kaczynski was arrested in April at his tiny shack near the Continental Divide.