Lawyers for Unabomber defendant Theodore Kaczynski are getting ready for a Friday hearing on whether they'll be able to mount a defense based on their client's mental state. Included in the evidence, they cite that Kaczynski is mentally disabled - his own words to the defense team's psychiatrists.
Although attorneys Quin Denvir and Judy Clarke have not conceded Kaczynski's guilt in the 17-year series of bombings, they have signaled that the their defense will be aimed at sparing him execution on charges relating to two fatal attacks in Sacramento, California. To that end, they've been trying to build a case that Kaczynski, arrested in early l996 in his shack near Lincoln, Montana, is a paranoid schizophrenic.
The Associated Press gleaned from a Tuesday court filing by Denvir and Clarke a defense psychiatrist's account that Kaczynski turned on him and denounced him as "the enemy."
Dr. David Foster said Kaczynski also cut off visits when they began discussing symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia.
"He looked me in the face and said, 'You are the enemy,'" Foster said.
Dr. Karen Froming said Kaczynski initially refused to acknowledge her presence. He later said he expected her testing to show he was mentally healthy. When she told him the results showed abnormality, he broke off the visits, she said.
"He informed me in writing the very next day that he would no longer need my professional services," she said.
US District Court Judge Garland Burrell will hear arguments on admitting the defense evidence on Friday. Federal prosecutors have dismissed the defense claims and have moved to have the evidence kept out of court because Kaczynski has refused to submit to a planned 39-hour battery of prosecution psychological tests.
