Clarke to head Duncan team

The attorney who defended Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and child-killer Susan Smith will head Joseph Duncan’s federal defense team.

Judy Clarke, formerly federal defender for Eastern Washington and Idaho, is leading the team of attorneys representing the suspected serial killer.

Duncan is set to be tried in January for kidnapping and other crimes against Dylan and Shasta Groene, including 9-year-old Dylan’s death.

In a court filing Friday, Clarke asked that all paperwork in the case against Duncan be sent to her. U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge has placed a gag order on those involved in the death penalty case.

Clarke works as a federal defender in San Diego. She was a federal defender in Eastern Washington and Idaho from 1992 to June 2002. Roger Peven, who has also been involved in Duncan’s defense, was hired as Clarke’s replacement.

Duncan was convicted last fall of the May 2005 murders of Brenda Matthews Groene, 13-year-old Slade Groene and Mark McKenzie.

He is serving a life sentence for related kidnapping charges – all three victims were bound and bludgeoned with a framing hammer. Duncan has yet to be sentenced for the triple-murder and could be returned to Kootenai County to face the death penalty for the slayings if federal prosecutors don’t succeed in the federal death penalty case.

Federal charges against Duncan stem from the kidnapping of Dylan and Shasta Groene, who were taken from the murder scene at their home east of Coeur d’Alene.

Duncan allegedly held the children captive at a remote Montana campsite for weeks. He sexually abused both children, according to court records, and used them to produce child pornography before killing the boy.

He is suspected in the abduction and deaths of other children in Washington and California.

Clarke is a nationally renowned death penalty attorney. In addition to defending Kaczynski and Smith, who was convicted of drowning her two sons, Clarke represented serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph.

She is a past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the newspaper previously reported, and her husband, Speedy Rice, was an instructor at Gonzaga Law School.