Theodore Kaczynski offered in recent weeks to plead guilty to Unabomber charges in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, a participant in high-level Justice Department proceedings said Sunday.
The plea offer was rejected by Atty. Gen. Janet Reno’s death-penalty review committee after extensive presentations by Kaczynski’s defense team, said the participant, who described the behind-the-scenes maneuvering on condition of anonymity.
The committee is headed by John Keeney, the acting chief of the criminal division and a career Justice Department lawyer. The Justice Department has declined to name the other committee members, although they are known to include other members of the criminal division and some federal prosecutors from around the United States.
In reviewing whether to seek the death penalty, the committee interviews victims and their families. In the Unabomber case, its members interviewed some of the victims and, under Reno’s guidelines, have been obliged to hear appeals from Kaczynski’s family and lawyer.
Court filings also confirmed over the weekend that Kaczynski had been engaged in a bitter struggle with his lawyers over trial strategy in a series of unusual closed-door meetings with the judge beginning Dec. 19. His defense lawyers have said they will portray him as mentally ill as a way to try to avoid the death penalty. Over the weekend, there were signs that the rift had been repaired and that Kaczynski was again working with his lawyers.
Kaczynski was willing to accept a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release for a string of bombings that began in 1978, left three people dead and injured 28 others. Such a deal would have enabled him to avoid hearing himself described as a delusional paranoid schizophrenic at the trial that is scheduled to begin Jan. 5.
The issue of Kaczynski’s mental health has been at the heart of his dispute with his lawyers, and it appears the defense lawyers will continue to press their claims that Kaczynski is suffering from mental illness. Quin Denvir, his chief defense lawyer, declined to comment Sunday on the plea offer.
