Is Kaczynski Mad To Not Plead Insanity? Lawyers Say He’s Delusional, But Their Client Rejects Claim

The lawyers for Theodore J. Kaczynski have a problem, and the problem is their client.

His attorneys believe Kaczynski is mad.

So do at least two psychiatrists they hired, who probed the mind of the former mathematics professor and found a deeply delusional, paranoid schizophrenic who was convinced “that every aspect of his existence is controlled by an omnipotent organization against which he is powerless.”

So does his younger brother David, whose tip led to the arrest of Kaczynski as the alleged Unabomber, and who hoped the federal government would help his troubled brother and not seek to put him to death by lethal injection.

Legal experts who are following the case say Kaczynski is resisting his only real line of defense: the introduction of evidence that might show he is haunted by the phantasmata of a deranged mind and so did not really intend to kill or maim anyone.

But such psychological evidence, as it bears on guilt or responsibility (as opposed to punishment) is a very tough sell with today’s juries, according to trial attorneys and forensic psychologists.

Despite public perceptions that insanity pleas are common, they are in fact extremely rare and usually result in plea bargains in which the prosecutors and defense both agree that the defendant is mentally ill.

But high-profile insanity cases - John W. Hinckley Jr., Jeffrey L. Dahmer, John E. du Pont, Lorena Bobbitt, John C. Salvi III - tend to be remembered by the public. Hinckley and Bobbitt were found not guilty by reason of insanity. Juries rejected insanity defenses for Salvi and Dahmer. Salvi committed suicide in prison; Dahmer was killed by another prisoner.

“This is not a particularly attractive defense,” said Peter Arenella, an expert on the insanity defense and professor of law at the University of California at Los Angeles.

But it may be the only defense, however partial it may be, that Kaczynski’s attorneys have. FBI agents uncovered a trove of evidence in his Montana cabin, including virtual signed confessions and a signature completed bomb.

U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. said after hearing motions in the case this week in Sacramento that he would rule later on how much psychological evidence will be allowed in the trial. But Kaczynski attorneys Quin Denvir and Judy Clarke have signaled their desire to argue that their client suffers from “a mental defect,” specifically paranoid schizophrenia.

Toward this end, they have had Kaczynski’s one-room cabin trucked from Montana to Sacramento as evidence. They plan to guide the jury through the tiny structure where Kaczynski, 55, lived for two decades, without running water or electricity, and offer the cabin as a window into his mental state.

They may also attempt to use Kaczynski’s own writings - the journals, manifesto and letters - to show that he harbored delusional, paranoid thoughts for decades.

These, however, are the very same writings that prosecutors will use to show that Kaczynski was a cold, calculating killer who knew exactly what he was doing.

Kaczynski’s attorneys are not arguing that their client is incompetent to stand trial (he clearly is participating in his case), nor are they pursuing a traditional insanity defense, in which they would try to convince the jury that Kaczynski was so mentally impaired that he did not know right from wrong.

Instead, they are pursuing a variation of a “diminished capacity” defense: meaning he may be shown to be the Unabomber but not to have the legal “intent” to kill.

Kaczynski himself steadfastly refuses to concede that he may be mentally ill, which in itself is further evidence that he is paranoid and delusional, according to psychiatrists who have spoken with him.

And so the stage is set for a trial in which his attorneys may work to introduce elements of insanity - but very, very carefully.

Kaczynski has not only refused to be interviewed by government psychiatrists but has been reluctant to work with specialists brought in by his own lawyers.

David Foster, a psychiatrist, stated in court documents that he reviewed the voluminous Kaczynski writings - personal journals, correspondence, collected news clips, treatises on technological society - and spoke with his family.

“Mr. Kaczynski’s writings,” Foster wrote in an affidavit, “cover a span of nearly four decades from adolescence to his arrest and chronicle his delusional thinking. Social isolation and preoccupation with delusional themes such as mind control, civilized society’s efforts to destroy him, and annihilation by technological society are consistently found in his writings … . Mr. Kaczynski chronically views accidental or intentional personal contact with other people, newspaper articles, scientific advances, commercial and residential development, air traffic, and radio and television broadcasts as threats to his survival.”

Foster also visited five times for periods of up to three hours with Kaczynski, a Harvard-trained mathematician, former Berkeley professor and later hermit. Foster stated that an essential component of Kaczynski’s paranoid schizophrenia is “his deeply ingrained fear of being considered mentally ill.” The defendant considers psychiatrists to be agents of mind control, according to Foster.