Defense Lawyers Call Proposal to Test Kaczynski ‘Harassment’

Attorneys for Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski on Wednesday branded a government request to conduct a mental examination of their client as “pure harassment and interrogation.”

In one of the most heated courtroom exchanges since Kaczynski’s arrest 18 months ago, attorneys clashed over a move by federal prosecutors to conduct a weeklong psychiatric exam that was scheduled to begin this Saturday but has now been delayed.

Seeking to block the evaluation, Quin Denvir, Kaczynski’s attorney, described the proposed daylong sessions by two government psychiatrists as “testing by a tag team of experts.”

But federal prosecutor Robert Cleary said the government was entitled to conduct the videotaped exam as soon as possible and complained that the defense was engaging in delaying tactics.

With the trial scheduled to begin Nov. 12, Cleary said: “this matter is one of extreme urgency to us . . . there is no subterfuge here.”

U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. asked both sides to file written briefs by Oct. 14 on what is emerging as a major point of contention.

“This is an issue I want to hear from the experts on,” Burrell said.

Meanwhile, Denvir indicated that he would be going to the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to challenge Burrell’s authority to order such an exam.

Kaczynski, 55, was arrested in April 1996 at his remote Montana cabin and later charged in four bombings, including two fatal blasts in Sacramento.

Although the government contends that Kaczynski is the anti-technology terrorist who began a string of bombings in 1978, the onetime UC Berkeley mathematics professor has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Kaczynski, who was recently moved from the Sacramento County Jail to a federal prison about 90 miles away in Pleasanton, was not in the courtroom Wednesday.

Earlier this year, Kaczynski’s defense team filed a court document alerting prosecutors that they would be consulting their own experts about Kaczynski’s mental condition. As a consequence, it appears that Kaczynski’s mental condition is likely to be central to his defense.

For weeks, prosecutors have pressed Kaczynski’s attorneys to spell out in more detail the nature of the mental defense, in part to assist their own experts in focusing their questioning of the Harvard graduate.

But on Wednesday, Cleary said prosecutors were willing to go forward almost immediately under “less than optimal conditions” without the specific diagnosis of Kaczynski’s mental condition.

Cleary said prosecutors are allowed under the law to examine Kaczynski for up to 60 days, if needed. The proposed seven-day evaluation, he said, was “very, very efficient.”

“Our experts are entitled to examine him on the evidence,” Cleary told Burrell.

In his written legal brief, Cleary said government experts need to review with Kaczynski his “voluminous writings, his numerous criminal activities, the abundant physical evidence concerning construction of the bombs, his entire personal history and his history of psychiatric signs and symptoms, if any.”

Denvir, his voice rising, complained about the intrusive nature of the proposed examination, with two government experts questioning his client for 10 hours a day with just a recess for lunch.

“Does the man [Kaczynski] get any time off to have a life of his own?” Denvir asked.