Judge to Review Files Sought by Kaczynski

A federal judge ordered prosecutors in the Unabomber murder case Tuesday to allow him to examine law enforcement files that attorneys for Theodore J. Kaczynski contend should be thrown out.

At a hearing, U.S. Magistrate Gregory Hollows told attorneys for both sides that he will review the disputed documents in private and decide later in the month which, if any, will be handed over to the defense.

Kaczynski is accused of building bombs that killed two men in Sacramento: timber executive Gilbert Murray in 1995 and computer shop owner Hugh Scrutton in 1985. Kaczynski, who did not attend the hearing, has pleaded not guilty and is in jail here awaiting a trial that is scheduled for November.

Defense lawyers charge that law enforcement officials falsified and omitted important information when they persuaded a federal judge to issue a warrant for a search of Kaczynski’s hut in a remote part of Montana nearly a year ago.

The search yielded a trove of critically important evidence, including what law enforcement officers identified as the makings of a bomb, typewriters and notes resembling a journal.

But defense attorneys Quin Denvir and Judy Clarke charge that the law enforcement affidavit in support of the search warrant contained deliberate falsehoods and omissions that connected Kaczynski to the Unabomber.

They charged that the prosecution has refused to give up to the defense certain investigatory files that would demonstrate his innocence. They are seeking, in particular, files on other people who had been considered suspects during the Unabom investigation.

But prosecutors argued that they have already provided laboratory reports and photographs demanded by the defense. Suggesting that the defense was fishing for material, they argued that they are not required to make additional files available.