Kaczynski Lawyer to Join Furrow’s Defense : Courts: Staunch death penalty foe who represented Unabomber will help defend white supremacist.

A defense lawyer who represented Theodore Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber, has been recruited to assist the legal team of white supremacist Buford O. Furrow Jr., it was disclosed Wednesday.

Judy Clarke, an ardent death penalty foe who heads the federal public defender’s office in Washington and Idaho, will join two Los Angeles federal public defenders assigned to the case.

Furrow is accused of shooting a postal worker to death in Chatsworth and wounding five people at a Jewish community center in Granada Hills last month.

Clarke’s appointment is subject to approval by U.S. District Judge Richard A. Paez, who has been selected to preside over Furrow’s trial.

Clarke, 47, could not be reached for comment at her Spokane, Wash., office. But lawyers who have handled federal death penalty cases describe her as one of the most knowledgeable and skillful practitioners in the field.

In the Unabomber case, she and co-counsel Quin Denvir negotiated a plea agreement that spared Kaczynski a possible death sentence for a wave of lethal bombings spanning 17 years.

In 1995, Clarke took a leave of absence from her federal post to help defend Susan Smith, a young South Carolina woman accused of killing her two sons by drowning them in a lake in her car.

Smith was convicted, but Clarke presented the jury with a stirring argument against execution, and Smith’s life was spared.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles has not yet announced if it will seek the death penalty for Furrow in the slaying of Filipino American postman Joseph Ileto. Such a decision must be approved by U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno.

Furrow is accused of gunning down Ileto on Aug. 10 shortly after he allegedly wounded five people, including three children, during a shooting rampage at the North Valley Jewish Community Center.

The 37-year-old Furrow was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of murdering Ileto, using a firearm in a crime of violence and being a felon in possession of a firearm. State charges are pending in connection with the Jewish center shootings.

Legal observers have said Furrow’s lawyers are likely to offer some kind of mental defense to save his life. Furrow surrendered to the FBI in Las Vegas a day after the attacks and reportedly confessed to the shootings.

In addition to Clarke, Furrow will be represented by deputy federal public defenders Sean Kennedy and Marilyn Bednarski.

The U.S. attorney’s office has assigned a veteran of its major crimes unit, Michael Terrell, to prosecute Furrow, along with the head of the civil rights section, Michael Gennaco, and another civil rights prosecutor, Caroline Wittcoff. They will be assisted by a member of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s staff who will be specially designated an assistant U.S. attorney for the trial.