Suicide watch on Kaczynski Mental exam ordered after suspected attempt

  Martin Kasindorf; Jonathan T. Lovitt

  01/09/1998

  USA Today

  FINAL

  Page 01A

  (Copyright 1998)

  SACRAMENTO -- Unabomber defendant Theodore Kaczynski apparently

  attempted suicide early Thursday, then agreed after a chaotic court hearing to

  undergo psychiatric exams to prove that he is mentally competent to act as his

  own lawyer.

  Opening arguments, originally scheduled to begin Monday, were postponed for

  at least another week after one of Kaczynski's lawyers told the court that

  Kaczynski wanted to represent himself.

  Nothing was said at the hearing about the suicide attempt.

  But Sacramento County jail authorities later in the day held a press conference

  where they revealed that Kaczynski, 55, may have attempted to take his life

  overnight by hanging himself with his underwear.

  When Kaczynski arrived at court this morning in his orange jail jumpsuit and

  prepared to change into civilian clothes for trial, U.S. marshals deduced from his

  missing underpants and a red mark on his neck that he had tried to hang himself

  in his cell.

  Kaczynski, charged with making bombs that killed three men and gravely injured

  two, told the marshals he had lost his pants in the shower.

  He returned to the county jail Thursday afternoon and was placed in a psychiatric

  cell where his movements will be monitored 24 hours a day.

  County Undersheriff Lou Blanas said Kaczynski has "been a model prisoner."

  As the morning's hearing began, defense co-counsel Judy Clarke startled the

  courtroom by announcing that her client wanted to handle his own defense. His

  request, she said, was a "very heartfelt reaction" to his attorneys' plans to argue

  that Kaczynski is schizophrenic, "a situation he cannot endure," as a defense.

  Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. denied Kaczynski's request

  to replace his lawyers with one who would drop the mental defect defense.

  Burrell also ruled that the attorneys could present evidence of illness.

  The judge said he was willing to let Kaczynski take over his own defense if he is

  found mentally competent. The defendant had previously refused a psychiatric

  test.