Judge Oks Death Penalty In Unabomber Trial Capital Punishment Constitutional If Kaczynski Found Guilty, Ruling Says

Putting Theodore Kaczynski to death would not be unconstitutional if the accused Unabomber is convicted of killing Sacramento timber lobbyist Gilbert Murray, a federal judge ruled Friday.

Less than a week before the start of trial, U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. rejected legal arguments designed to save Kaczynski’s life regardless of the verdict.

Kaczynski, 55, is charged in Sacramento with fatal bombing attacks on local residents Murray and computer store operator Hugh Scrutton. He also is charged with bombings elsewhere that maimed university professors David Gelernter and Charles Epstein.

The four attacks were part of a string of bombing incidents nationwide by a lone terrorist, dubbed Unabomber, that early on were aimed at university and airline targets, among others.

Jurors will be called upon to decide whether Kaczynski should be sentenced to death or life in prison only if they find him guilty of transporting or mailing the Murray bomb.

Of the 10 counts in the grand jury indictment of Kaczynski, only those two carry the death penalty as an option.

Mounting a broad attack on the federal death penalty statute, attorneys Quin Denvir and Judy Clarke challenged its constitutionality, its mandated procedures for seeking and imposing death, and the wide range of evidence it allows prosecutors to present during a trial’s penalty phase.

The defense motion argued that:

The death penalty, in all circumstances, constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Burrell disagreed, saying, “This contention is foreclosed by (U.S.) Supreme Court precedent.”

Prosecutors’ failure to submit to the grand jury evidence of Kaczynski’s mental state and the aggravated nature of his alleged crimes - factors that must be considered before imposition of the death penalty - render the indictment constitutionally deficient.