tobacco industry, the booze lobbies. we have the opportunity to do this right. let's have a smarter conversation about it, and not let business interests rule the day. >> i am going to respectfully ask you -- we need to wind up the program. i want to thank everyone for their participation, i want to thank the speakers in particular for their eloquence and preparation. i invite all of you to look at our programming -- we have great programming this winter. we are working on summer programming. i hope you attend future programs. it is cold outside, bundle up and drive safely. [applause]

>> a discussion on ted kaczynski, the unit bombers. after that, a discussion on the legalize marijuana use. after that, senator bernie sanders. on newsmakers, transportation secretary anthony foxx discusses infrastructure and a new report calls beyond traffic -- that looks at transportation needs.

on c-span. the political landscape has changed with the 114th congress. there are 108 women in congress. and the first women veteran in the senate. the congressional chronicle page has lots of useful information there. lots of statistics there, on c-span c-span 2 and c-span radio. >> ted kaczynski, also known as the unit bombers killed three people between 1978 and 1995.

in november, the attorneys talk about the case. from the u.s. district court house in sacramento, this program is one hour and 50 minutes. it was in may of 1978, that a professor from the university of illinois and chicago found a suspicious package in the parking lot. attempted to open the package, it exploded. it injured the officer. this was just the first of 16 bombs delivered over a span of the next 17 years to individuals in various locations across the united states. all but two of them caused serious injuries. three resulted in death. law enforcement shortly came to the conclusion that the bombs were all being sent by the same person, whom they doubt the

unabomber. understandably, the public was struck with fear, not knowing when or where the unabomber which strike next. the investigation came to a head in 1995 when the unabomber sent a 35,000 word essay to the new york times, the new york post, penthouse magazine, and other publications. it contains his so-called manifesto. it offered to cease the bombings if they would publish it. with the approval of law enforcement, the times and the post published the manifesto. when david kaczynski red the contents of it, he began to think the unthinkable. that it was written by his brother, ted. working with the information provided by david kaczynski, law enforcement was able to obtain a search warrant for a cabin occupied by ted kaczynski and an

area near lincoln, montana. law enforcement had enough to arrest ted kaczynski, and the decision was made by the united states department of justice to bring the prosecution here in the eastern district of california. the decision was also made to ask for the death penalty. the defendant was indicted in april of 1996, and the trial began in the courtroom of the united states district in 1997. after a lengthy jury process in january 1998, the defendant simply -- suddenly agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without parole. in our panel discussion this evening, we hope to discuss among other things how the fbi managed the investigation of

such series crimes, expanding over such a lengthy. of time and such a vast geographical area. we will also discussed the effect that those crimes had on their victims. one of particular. we will talk about why and how the decision was made to allow the publication of the unabomber's manifesto. we also hope to discuss what was involved in seeking and obtaining a search warrant. and, how the decision was made to bring the prosecution here in the eastern district of california. we hope to learn about the prosecution strategy including a decision to seek the death penalty. we were also in the defense strategy. finally, how the agreement was ultimately reached to the defendant to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. we have a distinct panel with us this evening to discuss the subject. therefore resumes are found in your program. first to my immediate left

terry turchie was a special agent for the fbi for 35 years. between 1994-19 98, he was the assistant special agent in charge of the unabom task force. he is co-author of four books, one of them is entitled, hunting the american terrorist, the fbi's war on homegrown terror. the most recent one, which has the most relevance to this discussion, is entitled, "unabomber," how the fbi broke its own rules to capture the terrorist ted kaczynski. our next panelist, to his left, is gary wright. he was the victim he prefers is a survivor, of the unabomber's 12th bomb attack on february 20, 1987. he has since developed a friendship with the defendant's brother, david

kaczynski. to his left, judge robert stephen left him -- lapham is a judge. he was the assistant united states attorney for the eastern district handling several high-profile cases between 1984-2013. he was a member of the prosecution team in the kaczynski case. finally to his left, quin denvir is a sacramento attorney who served as the public defender from 1977-1984, and at the time of the unabomber trial, he was the federal defender for this district. he was lead counsel on ted kaczynski's defense team. i would be remiss if i did not introduce one other individual who is present, but not on the

panel, the judge who presided over the kaczynski proceedings judge burrell. to get off the discussion, why don't you tell us how you got involved in the unabomber investigation and how that came about. >> like most agents, it was reluctant involvement. i can give you the seconds, down in the palo alto section. i received the call of the -- he said i just got off the phone with joe freeman.

which had just been established in 1993, after the simultaneous i smiled to myself and said that's a nice offer, ed, i'm good here. i love palo alto. i love being around stanford, so i'm good. but thank you. there is a pause and he said it was not a multiple-choice question. [laughter] i would like you to consider coming up here as soon as you can. so i said, ok, how about one month. that will give me time to wrap up everything here and we can find a new active supervisor and i will head up to san francisco. he said, how about in a couple of hours. most of us because of the length of the case, and i will use the words sheer hopelessness, that's how we thought about it, we all try to avoid that corridor that you will walk down in the federal building that house the

unabom task force. that's how i got started. >> the investigation had been going on for a number of years. can you summarize what the fbi had learned? >> the investigation had gone since may, 1978, and even though they were 14 bombings, there would be two more bombings while we were assembled. we did not know a lot, but we knew certain factual details where we had questions, but we had no answers. in looking back, particularly at the first three crimes, they became very important to us as we try to look at a new way to put this case together. the first bombing, one that happened in may, 1978, the main question was this, there was a package found at the university of illinois campus in the scientific and technology building parking lot. it had $10 in on canceled stamps

-- uncancelled stamps. somebody went to pick it up and eventually got it to the police and was harmlessly exploded, but we were never able to answer the question as to why we had a package with the return address of northwestern university in chicago and $10 in uncancelled stamps. why wasn't this package mailed? in may, 1979, another bomb was found, only this was found inside northwestern university. that struck us is very interesting because the first on we had with the return address with northwestern, and now we had a bomb actually at northwestern. so, we thought a lot about that and we tried to look at what possibly could be a connection between the two bombs. then the third bombing in november, 1979 occurred, which got everyone's attention. a bomb was laced on american

airlines flight 444 headed for washington national. there was a bomb placed on the plane via the mail that had been built with a barometer and fashioned as an altimeter. when it didn't go off because it was under a lot of luggage, it started a fire than rather explode as it was supposed to. but time this plane did an emergency landing at dulles airport and the pilots were able to get down and take a look at the damage when the fire was out, they were prepared to say that years later had this fire burned just a couple more inches closer to the main hydraulic line, this plane would have crashed and there would've been nothing we could have done to stop it. so, at that point, the fbi lab expert looked at this bomb and the parts and thought that it's very strange that we have not seen any other bombs built by someone who would do this. he sent out a bulletin and an alert to all kinds of agencies.

he got a call from the atf. they reference the first two bombings in 1978 and 1979, brought all this together, and then we realized in november of 1979 that we now have a serial bombing case. >> how did the name unabomber or unabomb get point? -- get coined? >> the first two bombings were involved at universities northwestern university and rpi, the first bomb with a return address of northwestern. the second bomb in the graduate student room in may, 93 night at northwestern gave us universities as targets. at the time this bomb was placed on the american airlines flight, we have universities and airlines. the fbi likes to attach fancy names to its cases, and they certainly got the public

attention. university and airlines bombing, unabomber. >> we had a chart behind us of all of the bombings. without getting into all of the details, what was the sequence of events after the first three? >> after the first three bombings, we would eventually have 13 more bombings, for a total of 16. in 1980, the airline aspect of this got another boost. percy wood, the president of united airlines in his lake forest, illinois home, received a package in the mail. but a week before he received the package, he received a letter, and the letter was written to him by someone named who signed the letter. in this letter, he said, you are going to be getting a package, a present. you don't know me, but anybody like you, president of united airlines, who makes decisions affecting the public welfare needs to read the book that i'm sending you.

the book turned out to be a novel that was written at the time, even the author really did not have social significance, so i do not know what they are talking about. i just came up with a one-day. percy would receive that package the next week. when he went to open it, the book had been carved out and it was a bomb built into the book. he suffered significant injuries when he opened this book at his house. that was the fourth event. all of those had annexes to chicago. then, no more nexus to chicago we are done with chicago. in 1981, we move on to salt lake city. in 1981, a bomb was left in a hallway at the university of utah business building. it exploded in the bathroom harmlessly because somebody had noticed it and the police to get in there. they detonated it. we were not able to do much with that. a few months later, we had another bombing.

this bomb was mailed from brigham young university and ended up with a professor at vanderbilt university in tennessee. the next bomb in 1982 was at the university of california at berkeley. that became a very important bombing. the victim, the person who fortunately was able to survive his injuries, had gone into another graduate student room on the fourth floor of the university of california at berkeley and corey hall worried when you go and does it that and look at that area, you realize that someone who came up and had the presence of mind and was not anxious about coming to this location on the fourth floor to leave this bomb here. it was very similar to what happened in northwestern with bombing number two. they really made us start to think about that. then, no more bombs between 1982-1985. we then started calling 1985 the year of the unabomber.

there were four bombs in 1985. one was at boeing corporation addressed to the boeing fabrication division in seattle, washington. all of the evidence from that bombing was gone, never to be seen again because it was detonated harmlessly in a tar pit of theirup there. we could never get anything back from that bombing. after that, another bomb at corey hall at the university of california berkeley, this time as you walk off the street onto the street level and go down a very narrow corridor that was occupied by graduate students. again, just like the bombing in 1979 at northwestern. by the fall of 1979, we had a bomb going to professor james mcconnell. finally, in december of 1985 the unabomber had his first success with one of his bombs.

that was right here in sacramento, california, out here at the old century plaza strip mall, a place called red tech computer store, the owner of that store came out from the door into the back parking not -- parking lot one-day around noon and he saw on the ground line by a cart what appeared to be a road hazard. in his mind, it was kind of a combination of two by fours nailed together. there were nails protruding. unbeknownst to him, inside these pieces of wood, the bomber had carved into the sides and built a bomb. when he went over to move this so it wouldn't cause problems for any harmless passerby, as soon as he reached over to break the contact between that the device and the ground, it

exploded. it killed him almost instantly that morning. the next bomb was an salt lake city and that involved our next panelist, gary wright. why don't you tell us what happened. >> sure. similar to what kerry was saying with the structure of the bombs. 1987, i owned a computer company in salt lake city. my family worked there with me. i had been out on calls working from route 6:00 in the morning and got back to the old is around 10:30 a.m. and pulled in the rear parking lot of our building at that time. as i pulled into the parking lot, i looked down at it next to my secretary's car, so i pulled next to her. there was a piece of wood that was similar to what you say, but different.

it was two two-by-fours put together and had four nails sticking out of it. those four nails have always stuck in my mind, because i can always remember one in particular that was on the right-hand corner. it was bent just a little bit. they were also the shiniest nails i had ever seen. they looked like chrome, something handmade. i walked out of my car and went over and said there is something i need to get out of the road. when i went over and went to pick it up, there was something really quiet wrong. there was an immediate feeling of huge pressure and the sound of a jet fighter going over, a screaming sound, if you will. instantly, i had moved a long way. i did not know how i got there. i realized that i was jumping up and down like was on a pogo stick. i was hollering for my family. everybody worked for me, my mom, my dad, my brothers. they came out the back of the door. as i'm jumping around back there, the only way i can describe the next thing i would

saw was like the matrix. everything went into slow motion. you hear this at times. i can tell you it is true. i was looking at the power and the telephone lines that went into the building and they were moving in a slow wave. i was watching pieces of things drift down around me. there was a piece of red tape that was spinning around like confetti. i was thinking this is the weirdest thing i've ever seen what happened? at that second, i really thought well, i'm not going to make it. i thought somebody had come around the corner of the building and shot me with a shotgun for some reason. my family came out at that point and i could see my dad was trying to say something to me. i was reading his lips because it was like being underwater in the swimming pool, you're kind of here, but not really here. he had been a state trooper in salt lake and had seen lots of things.

i could tell he was pretty upset. i was thinking that my dad is upset, maybe this is bad. slowly he and my brothers took me over and sat me on the edge of the tailgate of one of the trucks and sat there for a few minutes and i started to get shock coming at that point. while i was sitting there, i was was dressed nicely and i saw my pants were gone from the knees down. i had on a white dresser and there were these things i couldn't figure out what they were in the beginning, they were just like threaded through my shirt like needles. i thought, what the heck? i kept trying to put my head down to look, but i was having trouble understanding what it was good when the bomb exploded, it was inside of two by fours before spending been hollowed out. it was all of the slivers. they had, been impaled themselves for the doctors later told me that you look like a porcupine. that is something where they say

life changes in a minute, but it changes in a millisecond. you just never know. we walked into the building. i got really calm and took everything off, my hat, give it to my mom, and laid there. i guess i really realized it was pretty serious because the next thing i see coming to the back door was like 25 police officers, and the ambulance crew comes in, five of them. i don't know how you fit five guys when ambulance, but they were pretty successful. they said, well, this might be worse than i thought. i guess the real moral of the story is that it's not fun when they cut your close off and your mom is sitting there. [laughter] it is probably the most humbling thing you will run into. i was asking my mom to leave. this is not so good right now. ultimately, that day, they took

me up to the hospital and i waited about -- i got there at 10:30 a.m. at the hospital -- and they started surgery at 6 p.m. no painkillers at that point. the bodies natural morphine is a pretty amazing thing. if you get hit, it really doesn't hurt. that was a good thing for me to know. i went through three surgeries. the first night they basically went in and found that i had severed a nerve in my left arm when the bomb exploded. when some of that metal came apart, it was actually liquefied, and when it went into my arm it cauterized the artery. i was pretty lucky in that regard. that night they did a bunch of the face stuff to cut about 200 pieces of shrapnel from my legs and things like that. that was on a friday, friday the 20th of february.

i went home sunday. i didn't want to be in the hospital anymore and decided to recover at home. two weeks later, i went back into the hospital for another surgery to try to graft the nerve on my left arm together. they had to take the funny bone out and move it to the top of my arm. i tell people now that there are things that don't work, but i'm probably the fastest nine fingered typist you will know. i'm good with that. finally, a surgery later had to transfer tendons and things in my hand, and it was really strange when the doctor got in there. i have three tendons of my thumb. it was funny, because i needed to graft one of them to my index figure. his little weird, strange -- i don't know why those things happen -- that's a morning that probably changes your family's life in ways you don't know.

>> terry, how much time passed between the bombing that killed the man you described and the bombing that gary just described. >> we had six years go by. >> between the time of the bombing before his and gary's, six years in between those? >> run that by me again? >> how much time between the bombing and the bombing that gary just described. >> we had about a year and a half. >> how much time between the calming that gary just described in the next bombing? >> there we had six years, 1993. >> do have an idea why it was so much more time after this when the net was before? >> the topic of why we had all this time was widely debated. when we finally have the right guy and found a number of theodore kaczynski's writings

we found that during that time he was actually experimenting to build smaller, more compact bombs, and more lethal bombs. that's why when we start talking about the latter series of these bombings, instead of boxes and packages and two by fours, you literally had something the size of a videocassette that was placed in the mail to these future victims. >> in or other words, he had one cap in the next one was a failure. -- he had one death and the next one was a failure. >> gary and i talked about that. first of all, there's a lot of gratefulness that it didn't work out that way, but some of it is the way to carry approach that bomb. we feel that he walked over to pick up wood from the best vantage point, to pick it up to get it out of the way.

gary when he walked up, he had the inclination to reach to the edge and moved it, and so, when you moved it slightly, exploded and the force when in a different direction. >> the final two bombs did result in deaths, is that right? >> they did. the last two bombs, 15 and 16, was an advertising executive in caldwell, new jersey and another, he got one of those bombs in the mail. it was just a week or two before christmas, and the kids were running around the kitchen. they were getting ready to go to the christmas tree. the mom called them at the last minute. he had been over in london. the kids went off to get their pajamas on and get ready to go and there was a lot of mail that had stacked up. he started going to the mail. the first thing he took was this package that had a san francisco return address on it. his wife heard this terrible noise.

by the time she got to the kitchen, there was smoke everywhere. this bomb was so powerful in this videocassette type of container that -- and it had shrapnel, just as gary's bomb went off, have those copper skillets hanging on a rack, and it actually went through -- some of the shrapnel went through those thick skillets. that was the power of the blast. he was killed almost instantly. finally, in april 24, 1995 again, right here in sacramento in california for street association, a bomb had been set in the mail addressed to the president of the cfa. he had left. he had been replaced by mr. gilbert murray. mr. murray was going to take

this package to him in northern california, but when he opened it to see what was in it since it was addressed to the cfa, the same kind of bomb, the same kind with all the power and the destructive power just had no chance as he was sitting at his desk and opened the package. >> can you talk a little bit about what the unabomber was doing to avoid detection? >> i can. at the time, we realized we were after someone who knew a lot. he was certainly too smart to leave a trail. we had no idea how smart he was. it turns out that theodore kaczynski was a genius. he went to a great deal of work and effort to make sure he did not leave a trail behind. four -- for example all of these , bombs, they were all handmade. gary mentioned something shiny like a chrome mail.

it was probably something that was fashioned from chrome. he would start with the bombs. he would build them all from scratch. normally when we try to trace things back from a bomb scene forensically, we could not trace these things back to anything. he would take casings off of batteries so that you could not go back to the batch number and find out where battery was bought or something like that. it started with his bombs. he took sandpaper and sanded all of his devices carefully to make sure that when those bombs were placed in the mail, they did not had any of his finger prints on them. he wore gloves when he was carefully putting his bombs together. in one instance, he actually went to a bus station in montana. he got down on the floor and gathered here from the floor of the bathroom. he took that hair back and then he started putting it in between layers of tape on some of the future bombs he built. he would later write that he did

this because if the fbi found hair at a crime scene, they would think that hair came from the person who built the bomb. really it was something he found in the bathroom. when he would go buy things, like old pieces of pipe or anything he might use to create a bomb, he would disguise himself. in one instance, he talks about going to a junk store in salt lake city. he had stuffed his nose with cotton and he had trimmed his hair dyed it black, and had weird glasses on. he went in there and figured that if anybody sees me, they would not recognize me the way a look today. he did all these things in an effort to make sure he concealed his identity. it helped him later. >> there was a famous composite picture of the unabomber that was circulated. everybody was familiar with that. how did that come about?

>> well, gary was part of a major turning part in what we call unabomber history. on february 20, 1987, one person was looking out the window where he was kneeling from the ground to arm the bomb that he would eventually come across. she noticed right away that something was wrong. she's calling your dad, and she's watching all this, she's watching literally kaczynski set this bomb in motion for when somebody walks around. then, her attention was taken off of him. he leaves. he walks around the corner of the building and he's gone. almost immediately, you happen to pull in at that point. she described him. this is the first time that we knew that the unabomber is a male. we kept getting that question --

are you sure it is a male> we kept asking her if she was sure. but she described them well. this becomes one of the more embarrassing parts of this case, where this happened in 1987, and she described this man perfectly. subsequently a composite was put together. that composite was distributed between 1987-1994. she was never happy with that composite. something dramatic had happened in the bay area during that timeframe. you're familiar with the case of richard allen davis and a kidnapping and murder. if you've seen the picture of richard allen davis, and using a composite together the artist after the fact, you see the similarity in these two, the composite and the photograph. we started thinking as we were looking for different ideas and different things to apply to unabomber, why do we go back and

redo the composite. max knoll, who was one of our case agents, got in the plane and flew out and met tammy. her young daughter was there. she was going to sit down with tammy and go through the painstaking detail of putting together this new composite. it was the one we ultimately distributed. max likes to make sure people know -- you think an fbi agent doing something like this has a difficult task. while they were in the other room doing the composite, max was trying to entertain the kids and watch multiple showings of "the lion knig" to keep the really busy. it turned out that that composite -- we got that out in 1994. we put it out with a message.

by this time, we were also telling the public -- the four devices, i think in the middle of 1981-1982 in salt lake city. take the two bombings at berkeley and think of the nexus with the bay area and look at this composite. those are the things we were dealing with, trying to bring the public into this big mystery. we had one other small detail, the original composite, you can't think of everything, police, everybody, all the time. the original composite, the artist mother got mad that they put out a new -- so, we got a number of calls that she was very upset and very disappointed that we did that. you never know what your going to get with the next phone call. those in some of the things happen along the way. >> the real day came when you receive the manifesto. can you tell us about that? >> we wanted a piece that would

pull this together. we would have pulled out most of our hair to do it. i think i have. finally, the unabomber, after the murder of mr. murray -- also keep in mind, just days earlier we had the bombing of the federal building in oklahoma. all of this is on the news. what do we get? we get letters to the new york times, penthouse, all kinds of different places the washington , post, that the unabomber group , which he called a terrorist organization, is preparing a manifesto. they want that manifesto to be published. and we will get a copy of we agree to their terms. the idea was that the new york times would publish the manifesto, possibly the washington post, but if they

didn't publish this manifesto again, we haven't seen it yet in april of 1995, we would end up seeing more bombings. if they published it, the terrorist group would desist from bombings. so on september 1995, we get two things happening. one is the san francisco chronicle gets a letter one afternoon saying that this is the terrorist group. i've put a bomb on an airliner out of lax. everybody's command post is lit up everywhere. we are trying to figure out how to deal with this. the next day, the manifesto starts floating in -- flooding in to these various places seven people got copies of it. it was accompanied by a short later that said just one last joke, here's the manifesto. so, once we got it and started reading it and we had our profiler really dive into this it did two good things.

one, for some of us, it was the piece that could bring this altogether. for many people, they thought it might be a red herring that we had to decide how were going to deal with it and fitted into this, but we also had to decide something else. this became our biggest decision, what kind of recommendation are we going to make to the attorney general janet reno, and the fbi director. essentially what we're doing here, no matter what we do, if we decide to recommend that you publish the manifesto, the big thing was, are we giving into terrorism? isn't it against government policy to negotiate with terrorists and give in to extortion. that was a big issue that created our entire thinking between the time we got the manifesto in september -- or in april -- and the time it was published.

-- or in april -- and the time it was published. >> ultimately, you decided it would be published. what went into that? >> we through this around and we came to a conclusion. there were about six others, the special agent in charge of the san francisco office, the man who would put together the arrest plan, myself, we through this around i can forth. we went into another room and decided, ok, a recommendation should be that we don't publish it. we took off to write up how we were going to write this and presented to the attorney general and fbi director. we were looking at each other. we had a sacramento resident in there with us on our task force. we look at each other and it's quiet. we decided to do -- that we made the wrong decision. we had to go back in and say

i've got news here. we said we had to change our minds. we had the discussion all over again. one primary reason we felt that publication was the way to go it was her missing piece, 35,000 words, so passionate and so specific that we thought it represented the lifelong thinking of the people we were looking for. if we could take this piece and put it with those other two pieces, the composite, the geographical sequencing, and then rita manifesto, put it all together, and call us if you know anyone like this. that's what we sent the new york times, the washington force -- post. that's what they decided to do. the manifesto was published on september 19, and between separate -- september 19 and february of 96, we received over 55,000 phone calls on the

unabomber tip line. we had wives wanting to turn in their husbands. [laughter] girlfriends wanting to turn in their boyfriends. yet, none of those people were the unabomber. until that call in the middle of february from a follow name david. -- tony. he was representing an unknown client. they wanted to talk to us about some information that the client had. >> steve you were in the u.s. attorney's office is full-time. when did you become involved in the unabomber investigation? >> i became involved in april 1993. i had just finished a fairly prominent arson trial with the atf. i was doing a lot of their cases. an agent named gregg barnett

brought me this case that had long been dormant, the unabomber had not been heard from and about six years at that point. he said, here, take a look at this. so the reason he brought that to me was because there are typically a five-year statute of limitations on all federal offenses. the statute that we had had 12 bombings of to that point, the statute of limitations at all expired with the exception of one. there is no statute of limitations on capital murder cases. he was killed in sacramento in 1995. that was the one case there was still subject to any kind of federal jurisdiction. the venue was appropriate in sacramento. the bottom line was that it was the only case -- the only place

where the case could be investigated. >> did you start to work on the case at this time? >> i did. there were some working theories , not very good working theories about who the unabomber might be, some of which have been developed by atf agents in chicago. i was not aware at this point there was such a thing as a unabom task force. i dived into the case and started mastering the fax. >> did you eventually get involved with the task force? >> yes, it was shortly after that. i was say it was in for-six weeks after that that i started attending task force meetings. you weren't there at that point. very shortly after that, june of 1993, we heard from the unabomber again. he mailed to bombs from

sacramento, one went to a yale university professor in new haven, and the other one went to a professor at uc san francisco. now we are off and running again. >> were you on the task force of the time the decision was made to publish the manifesto? >> yes. >> did you participate in that decision question mark -- decision? >> the decision was essentially made by the fbi, but there were several discussions we had. why we, i mean steve, the northern district task force at the time. i was certainly very strongly in favor of publishing. i think steve was also. it was basically a 35,000 word writing sample. >> how did you learn about david kaczynski and his involvement?

>> i think terry or max probably notified me that we had been contacted by an attorney. if i'm not mistaken, that occurred in the fall of 1995. >> february of 1996. >> that's when we put agents in montana. >> it happened really fast. it was december 15 when we first heard to them. >> it's interesting have you compress time. i remembered it as occurring earlier than that i'm a but the bottom line is we were contacted by this attorney, and he recounted how he had a client he was representing anonymously at that point who believed he knew who the unabomber was. this client had hired a private

investigator to check it out. the private investigator had come back with the conclusion that there was a 60% chance that ted kaczynski was the unabomber. with that information, david kaczynski authorized the attorney to go to the department of justice and relay his information. it came with a price. david kaczynski was asking that in return for the bulging through this individual was, he wanted the department of justice to forgo seeking the death penalty. >> did they do that? >> know, the department of justice rejected that offer. >> nevertheless, you received information from david kaczynski. >> yes, he came forward and gave us the information. i think one of the reasons that he did is that if you look at some of the diaries and journals for kaczynski, he had been estranged for -- from david for

>> of time. he reached out to david uncharacteristically in 19 -- initially in 1994 and asked for a $1000 loan. david ing a compassionate person agreed instantly -- david, being a compassionate person, agreed instantly. later, ted is back asking for another loan from david. this time, $2000. david went to give him the money. when david started feeling that his brother might be the unabomber, he started connecting the dots and came to believe that his loans to his brother had actually financed the last two murders, bombs 15 and 16. that actually turned out to be correct. i think out of that share

knowledge david understood that he could not sit on this information and he divulged it. >> along with the other information, you learned where ted kaczynski was living? >> yes. >> how was the decision made to get a search warrant for that cabin? >> we had had a search warrant in various stages of preparation all along, because it was a very massive search warrant. there was a lot of information that we could include before even knew who the unabomber was. you have to put in information about each one of the 16 devices, including the various components of the devices so that you know which are searching for when you execute the warrant. you have to put in the basic facts, connect all 16 devices. a lot of that was already done. >> who did that? >> various members of the team. steve took the lead on that.

in the final preparation, when we knew who the warrant was good to be executed against steve max, terry, and probably some others and 24 inch pieces spent an all nighter drafting the final version of the warrant and faxed it off to the district of montana in the early morning hours. >> a judge in the district of montana issued the warrant? >> correct. >> would you learn when the warrant was executed? >> the search lasted over nine days. people wonder why does it take nine days to search a 10 by 12 foot cabin. the working assumption was that when we went into this place, it would be a bomb factory.

protocols were in place to x-ray everything in place before they were moved. in fact, they too -- day two of his search, we found a fully functional bomb undertake kaczynski had. -- under ted kaczynski's bad. -- bead. >> we had a final the vice -- it was fun up from riverside california and avoid to bring the bomb out of the cabin. >> everything comes to a screeching halt to the point. the agents are cleared out of the cabin. the bomb is removed. the search continues. we found some broad categories of evidence, about 40,000 pages

of kaczynski's writings, which included admissions to almost all of his bombs, if not all. we found diaries, entries that expand his motivations for killing. we found binders containing 240 experiments that kaczynski had done over the years trying to perfect his bomb making techniques. we found physical items in the cabin relating back to bombs unabomber bombs. there was a very specific signature piece of ted kaczynski's bomb, which we call the flip switch, a mechanism that completes the circuit to detonate the bomb.

very unusual design characteristic of unabomber devices, the flip switch itself was made of it is avoid hickory , i think, there was fashioned out of an ax handle or hammer handle. we found it oatmeal canister that contained 17 of those flip switches. you put them side by side, they are virtually identical to the ones we found in unabomber devices. one of the most important pieces of evidence we found that we all said that if we want anything in the world, this is what we want a smith corona typewriter. since 1982, the unabomber had used an lc smith corona typewriter that the fbi labs had estimated had been manufactured

in 1934, 1935, with 2.5 for spacing, which is the senate leaders between the letters. we were looking for very specific objects. this is the typewriter that the unabomber had use to not only type the manifesto, but to type everything from envelopes that accompanied his bombs to the letter that preceded the devices. that letter was typed on this typewriter. if we found that typewriter, that would connect kaczynski to all of the devices. we found one old typewriter in the cabin. experts to look at it, wasn't the one. we found a second one. that was the one. on the last day of the search, we found an lc smith corona

typewriter manufactured in 1935 with 2.5 for spacing -- 2.54 spacing. >> with all that you found, you would have no difficulty in pursuing a case against kaczynski? >> we could convict him 10 different times. >> the discussion -- decision to prosecute is interesting. can you tell us how that came about and why the decision was ultimately made to prosecute the case here? >> i indicated previously that the statute of limitations is five years for most federal offenses. by the time we got to 1996, when the unabomber is captured, we had a valid statute of limitations on only five devices. three murders, and then the devices in 1983 that were mailed

from sacrament of that went to separate parts of the country. so, as of 1996, sacramento had been you over four of the five devices. two of them because the bombs are going off here. two of them because the bombs of been mailed here. the only devised we did not have been you over was the one that was sent from san francisco to new jersey. that was separately indicted in new jersey. >> who made the decision to prosecute here? >> attorney general janet reno was the one who ultimately made the decision. we went back to washington, d.c. and made a presentation to her. by week, -- wee,, i mean bob cleary, the first assistant from new jersey was there. we led at the case for her. -- late appliqués for her.

>> was there any disagreement? >> there wasn't. it was immediate decision to make for the reasons i stated. we have the choice of prosecuting the case into locales or four with four of them being in one location. from a lawyer standpoint, it was an easy decision to make. >> how was the decision made on whether to seek the death penalty? >> that was made through the department of justice is normal operating protocols. there was a death penalty review committee that is convened in all cases where the u.s. attorney wants to seek the death penalty. that committee is composed of high-level department of justice officials. the prosecution is required to submit a package to that death penalty committee setting forth

all the information you would expect, the basic facts of the case, the aggravating and mitigating factors that would warrant seeking the death penalty, of course the statutory basis for seeking the death penalty, such as the laying in wait or deliberation, things like that. the defense was also invited to make their submission stating whatever mitigating factors they believe. in this particular case, david kaczynski was invited to participate and the death penalty review panel. >> what position did he take? >> surprisingly, he was asking for his brother to be saved. spared the death penalty. his position was twofold. he basically said, look, and his view, these crimes had been

motivated by his brothers mental illness. and not by true criminal behavior. he also made a pitch that if the department of justice sought the death penalty, the blood would be on his hands. david's hands, because he is come for to provide information necessary to find his brother and david felt a great deal of responsibility, as any brother would. >> were you actually the federal defendant or this district when ted kaczynski was arrested? >> i had? how have you learned he had been arrested? >> i red about it. >> did you take any steps even though you are not the federal defender yet?

>> i contacted the federal defender and told them that i would like to be appointed under the criminal justice act to represent thad said -- teed since he had been arrested. he approached the court. i was appointed and took it up from there. >> what about the decision to represent yourself? >> i felt that if the case did come to sacramento, that the federal defender's office should take the lead on it. there had been a case of couple of years early the oklahoma city bombing, where the local office had deferred and had private attorneys handle the case. i had been a county public defender, the state public defender, was now going to be the federal defender. i felt the defender offices should do the hardest cases.

>> did you go back to montana to interview ted kaczynski? of the. >> there was an early meeting where it was unclear where the case would be brought and where the federal defender from san francisco, the federal defender from new jersey the federal defender up from montana and myself all met together there to talk about where things pete go and things of that nature and met with ted that the point for a short time period. >> did you participate in the proceedings to determine whether the government would seek the death penalty? >> we did. the question of whether the government would seek the death penalty was not decided at the tile of the arrest or the time when it was dough sided where would be prosecut cuted. it was months beyond that. the department of justice allows time to put together a kate case for mitigation and we went back and presented that case to this capital review committee or

whatever it is called. i should say that one -- david kaczynski made two other points why there hud not should not be a death penalty. he said if you execute my brother after i was the one that brought him inion no one will ever bring any one in again. and the second is when tony first approached the government about an agreement no death penalty if david cooperates that was turned down but david said later he was told in the course of this of or somewhere in there it would be a good thing for there to be -- for ted to be arrested and brought in because he would not do other damage which i think really worried david more than maybe guilt about he helped on two earlier ones. he was afraid that he had information about who was doing

this and the pen might continue to -- person might continue to do it but also told something to the effect of it will bebe off be better off for him. he took that to mean there was some agreement. we made a presentation all cases where death penalty is even possible goes to the committee with a recommendation from the local u.s. attorney one way or another. this one there was recommendation for it. the economyee committee recommended that attorney general reno approve the authorization of the death penalty and that is what happened. >> what steps did you take to pulpit together the defense team -- to put together the defense team? >> we put it together as soon as we found out the case was coming here. i wanted people to be involved in the presentation of the mitigation to the capital review committee. i felt that in the of office i

was the most qualified to be the lead council though i had not tried a capital case i had been involved in ainvolved in a number of capital cases in various roles and i wasn'ted to get another attorney so we would have two of us working together. i felt again that we should look within the federal defender system for the second attorney. there wasn't a need to go out. we had the resources there. i had several, three, four, six months earlier been at a degree penalty conference in houston and one of the people there was judy clark who at that time was the federal defender for eastern washington and idaho. and she had taken par in this and i was quite impressed what she said and we went out to the airport together and had a couple of beers together and flew to denver together and didn't see each other again.

i knew she was well thought of for her trial work and legal skills and she had recently handled her own capital case. took a love of absence from her job to cocounsel a case in south carolina, i believe or north north carolina. susan smith case. the woman who had driven the car into the lake and the children had died. she had done that with with david brucs. i approached her. i knew she was a tireless worker literally tireless. i'm not tireless. and so i approached her and she said she would be willing to do it. >> who else was on the team? >> we want the an attorney to take over the role of developing the mitigation themes. in the normal case noncapital case you have a trial where the only question is did he do it and what did he do? and then it goes to a judge to

hear evidence or something along those lines to it make a decision as to what the step tense would be. in a -- sentence would be in a capital case a separate penalty phase where the same jury who decided guilt will decide the penalty. the penalty was going to be ear the death penalty or life without the possibility of elise is the federal phrase -- possibility of release is the federal phrase, not parole. what developed over time in the company tal defense community was the idea that the government is going to have the whole guilt phase focused on the offense and prove offense and who did it and then the jury will know all about that and then you will shift over to the penalty phase where the defense has to bring a to cuss on the offender, the person who has been convicted of the crime and to present to the jury every possible theme, pack prediction hope, as a reason

why they would say we can let this person line and live and die in prison rather than being executed by the got. one was a lawyer by the name of gary sowards in san francisco and we asked him to come on as the mitigate is attorney. is attorney and there are specialized havingers. we have a lot of death penalty cases in the country and a lot of people learn a lovely afternoon and they become what we call mitigation specialists. investigators who specialize in presenting the mitigation teams. researching the person's background to find the themes that you can present to the jury and one of the before best and probably the one who started the whole craft was a woman by the name of charlotte holdman.

she also is in san francisco. we hired her. and then in order -- they needed people to go out to talk to everybody who ever knew ted and go up to lincoln, go to harvard. go to michigan, berkeley. everything. talked to everybody you can to found out more about the person that you can then present to the jury so they will see who this person is, not just "the offender." because one of the themes is in these cases for the defense is no one is the worst thing they have done. there is always more to it and that is true of every person on the jury, true of eastbound. everybody. you are never effort only the worst thing you have ever done there is always more to it and you want to show that here. we decided then to -- we retained some law students who took time off and they worked under charlotte being the kind of the people on the grown on the ground going out and talking to

eastbound and writing reports. >> steve, you also had a team. whose on your team? >> bob cleary was the head of the team. the first assistant in new jersey. steve had been on the unabomb task force for quite some time. he was from the northern district of california and then i represented the eastern district. is. baseally we had the 15 u.s. attorneys from the three involved districts. we also had a very able prosecutor from montana and an extremely able writer an assistant u.s. attorney named douglas wilson who came on to basically be our brief writer because we knew this was a case that was going to involve a lot of briefing on a lot of different issues. >> it wouldn't be brief. >> speaking of briefing, quin, it sounds like there was a lot of evidence obtained as a result

of that search. did you make any effort to quash that search for any reason? >> we did. one of the jobs of the defense attorney is to look at search warrants and see whether you think that they are lawful and if they are not whether the evidence that is seized pursuant to the warrant can be suppressed. and we looked at that search warrant, affidavit actually, about 100 pages i recall. and the f.b.i. was hustling to put that affidavit together with good reason because they were afraid there might be another crime. and they compiled a lot of things. we felt that in the end it wasn't sufficient. you have to understand basically until david kaczynski contacted the f.b.i. no one in the government had ever heard of ted

kaczynski. he was not on the radar. in fact, later on they found his name in a big databank of people who graduated from the university of michigan. when david then came in and said he thought his brother could be and i don't think he ever sid said he was but he thought he could be. he was concerned about this for reasons that both steve and i have explaineddion gave the information and then the government put a lot of folks out working very hard to put together the search warrant. we he felt that it didn't show probable cause to believe the facts in there were not sufficient to show probable cause that ted kaczynski was the unabomber. we filed a motion to suppress. the government responded. we replied. it went to the judge and he felt that there was sufficient probable cause. i have to say two things about that. one is i'm convinced to this day if they had gone into the cabin

and found nothing about the unabomber but found a pound of emergencymarijuana and charged him with marijuana we would have had the warrant thrown out. there is something that just is a mat are of reality. -- a party of matter of reality. i believe in the law and the law has got the to go where it has to go and where it has to be driven. there is something counter intuitive to say that these facts don't show probable cause that he is the unabomber when inside the cabin after the search there is endless evidence that he is. i think that is kind of a head change that would be very hard to make. >> did you just argue ha that there was not probable cause or present some evidence to the court to persuade the court? >> we always present evidence, no just arguing, you know that. >> tell us about it. >> we went through every fact that was stated in there other than the nature of the crimes and that they were linked

together which was irrelevant about whether there was probable cause to believe ted was there and tried to show that it didn't have the significance that they attributed to it. one of the big things that was done, there was a large -- there was a substantial part of the affidavit was devoted to the unabomber man man fess he was tow manifesto and there was a detailed analysis trying to show that words in there and concepts this there were -- could be attributed to ted kaczynski. and we went through and tried to show why that was not true. one of the ones that was the most striking was the unabomb manifesto said you can't -- i always get this wrong. you can't have your cake. >> noing you can't eat your cake and have it too. >> we always say the normal way we say is you can't eat your cake and have it, too. this is the normal one right?

>> no. >> ted kaczynski has you convinced. >> amany trying to remember the phraseology. you can't eyour caulk and have it too. you can't have your cake and teeth, too. you have it backwards. we hired a linguist and one of the things interesting about that the phrase you can't have your kick and ooh it, too, which is really literally correct you can't have your cake and eat it, too. is the correct one and also goes back to the bible from the book of proverbs and it has opinion used in literature and -- been used in literature and a number of different praises. it was not some unusual phrase that only ted kaczynski ever used. though the affidavit did point out he had used that phrase in a letter to his mother. so it was not foreign to him. but it wasn't like this curious phrase that he is the only buy guy who has ever said that he must have done this. and then we went through the

rest. they made a point of fact that the manifesto spelled installment with one l instead of two l's and our linguist said that is a common thing. null ofthe number of times certain were used and the linguist said that didn't moon anything. and then point out things that cut the other way. ted split his in fintives and the manifesto didn't and vice versa. there is a lot of facts connected -- collected about his movements and we tried to explain that none of them ever linked to any particular bombs. but there was -- you have a hundred pages of which probably 80 pages are facts that are supposed to shoatsupposed to show the probabliable cause and we tried to take those on across the board. >> given the court's ruling denying your hoax to suppress, what was your -- your motion to

suppress, what was the trial strategy? >> it was clear if we didn't win the motion to suppress and the evidence from the cabin came this there would be a guilty verdict. steve has given you a little bit of what it was. i mean ted had written thousands of pages of journals and he discussed all of the stuff that steve talked about. it was clear that he was going to be convicted. the only question is what would the penalty be and would it be life or death businessically. -- basically and so our goal from then on was to having lost the suppression motion that might have changed the guilt question in fact it would have eliminated the guilt trial because there wasn't enoughed of without that then we had to start dealing when would the penalty be when the jury would convict him. >> steve, what was your trial strategy? >> to win.

we knew -- there were two cases going on that was catching national prominence. the oklahoma city bombing case and ours and i kind of viewed those as flipside of of the coin. in oklahoma city i thought they might have a difficult time proving guilt but once they proved that who is not going to give the death penalty to someone who has killed 368 americans. i viewed ours as the evidence was overwhelming, i had very little doubt that we were going to get a conviction but we knew that a mental defess was coming or -- defense was coming or probably would be coming and that that was going to be battleground. >> what did you do to protect against that? >> we prepared to meet the defense whether it came in the guilt phase or the penalty phase. we had amassed a lot of evidence with respect to kaczynski's

desire to kill when that was formed, his lack of remorse, his struggling with his conscience as to whether or not killing was an appropriate way to go. and we felt this he was his own worst enemy. he had written so much on those subjects that we were just going to display that for the jury. >> did you make any effort to get a mental examination of ted kaczynski? >> well, we did. that came up because the defense in june of 1997 the trial commenced in november of 1997. in june of 197, 1997, the defense filed a motion setting forth their intention to put forth a mental defense short of insanity. that triggers certain rights on behalf of the prosecution. we can seek to have our experts then do a psychiatric examination of the defendant. >> did you ever get that examination?

>> we did not. we spent the better part of the summer briefing that issue back and forth issues like how many psychiatrists for the government are going to going to able to do that. what is the setting. what kind of questions can they ask? that briefing continued throughout the summer and into the start of jury selection. we were still arguing about it when kaczynski finally indicated he simply wasn't going to submit to a mental examination. then the briefing switched from well, what is the consequence of that refusal? and the government's position was there are all sorts of sanctions that could be imposed including preventing him from raising a mental defense or barring expert testimony or variations on the theme. >> quin, notice that receive referred to was 12.2 b notice.

>> correct. >> why did you give such a notice of intent to use a mental defense? >> first of all, i want to clarify something. that is the -- a notice that you are going to present a mental defense through expert witnesses in the guilt phase. or present that kind of evidence. and recently been amended to say if you going to rely on your experts who have talked to the defendant then the prosecution has a route to have right to have someone talk to him, too. that was the setting for that. our thought was that the jury was going to hear everything as i say about the offenses throughout the guilt phase which is going to be quite prolonged. i mean the government was going all out with all of their evidence, although i don't know that they needed it all but that was going to be their decision. and then we were going to come in and say by the way, here is ted kaczynski, you to know something about him. we thought it was important this

they get an early sense about who ted was and his history and his mental illness and so we wanted to present that evidence not with any hope that it would defeat the convictions but that it would at least introduce those kind of thoughts to the jury before we made a fuller presentation. >> did you intend to call experts on his mental condition during the guilt phase? >> we originally did. >> and what changed your mind? >> what really changed our mind -- well, actually what changed our mind was, first of all, there was a point where ted became very upset about that idea. and was very upset about it and we had some conferences in camera with the judge and developed a t. a lot it a lot and we finally agreed that we would not present those which necessaries witnesses

in the guilt phase, expert witness barkeep open the fact that we would -- kept oh the fact that we would (other witnesses and physical evidence like the cabin in the guilt phase and expert and other evidence in the penalty phase. >> all right. so that is esectionly where it was at the time -- essentially where it was at the time. >> let's get to the trial. how difficult was it to select a jury? steve? >> we called in about 600 people in the jury pool for the reason that there wasn't anybody who wasn't going to know about this case. and so they filled out about 100 page questionnairend a the procedure that the judge had set up was to call six jurors in in the morning and six jurors in the janine. eachafternoon. each side would be given 1 minutes to voir dire. that is a half hour times six

jurors. three hours in the morning and three hours in the janine. afternoon and they have to be death qualified to have to be examined as to whether they have any serious objections to the death penalty. and things like that. >> it was a challenge to find people who had not already formed an opinion on case. >> wasn't part of the proceedings conducted at the fairgrounds at cal expo? >> the initial 600 jury pool was brought out to cal expo to fill out the question areas. >> how long did that take to get a panel? >> i looked at this the other day. so my surprise it only took 16 days but that win from november 12 is when we started and impaneled the jury a couple of days before christmas.

>> at you finally got a jury selected did anything unusual happen? >> oh, yes. [laughter] >> quin has already referenced the fact that ted had tried to fire his attorneys or express some dissatisfaction with their pursuing a mental defense. the trial was set to begin january 5 and the court had thought i think justifiably that he had brokered a deal with kaczynski to keep the attorneys on if they would agree not to present a mental defense. and quin can tell the story better than i can but judy clarke apparently premiered her opening statement to kaczynski the night before trial was set to commence so january 4 and he was very upset allegedly about

her mentioning mental issues in her opening statement. >> if quin can tell it be, let's hear it. >> i will deal with the allegedly maybe a little bit. let me go back to jury selection. one of the things that was very interesting about that was the big question for us was not whether people thought ted was guilty or not it was could they keep an open mind on the two penalties. we spent a lot of time, both sides, asking those questions. early on what judge burrell did as steve explains we would have 15 minutes each or three jurors, morning and afternoon and then get a transcript that night of the voir dire and then we could make challenges for cause the next day. and so that we would deal with just kind of systematic like that which i thought was a good way to do it. orillion in the voir tier and i think judge burrell does not remember this.

i was sitting there and we would voir dire some jurors and we would say do you believe that someone intentionally kills someone they should get the death penalty and they would say oh, yeah and we are like okay we go the a cause problem here. i judge would say as judges always do in this thing to make sure that you understand what they are saying would say but if i told you that the law requires you to consider both penalties would you consider it? the jurors would all say well, yeah. so there would go the cause challenge potentially. the judge could look at it. i had realized that the jurors are sitting about closer than we are right now below judge burrell who is quite big and has aa deep voice and he would ask in a way that wasn't men to intimidate them but impress them if i tell you this you are going to do it. i realized everybody is going to

say sur judge, i will follow the law, whatever it is. we wanted them to be on hest about where are you coming from on this. that is the key thing. i had the tamarity or rashness rashness to say judge could we approach you for a bench conference and i explained the problem as you saw it. he said well i don't mean to intimidate them or influence them. i said i understand it has the same effect. he said well, how about if i came down to the lectern where the lawyers stand and that is what he did for the ref of the selection. i don't think it has ever been done before. i thought in the end the jury selection went very well. i'm not sure i was happy with the jury or stove steve was but given the pools and everything it went well. that kind of stood out to me. it just changed the die ma'am dynamics. when he was fur away i think

people felt more easier to kind of say what they were realing think,ing. that is my diversion. what was your question? >> what happened when judy clarke went over her opening statement with ted kaczynski. >> you have to understand, first of all, that ted is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. he has written forever about the evils of mental health professionals and what they do in the way of mind control. he is a genius and his -- he kind of -- his core is his mind and his brain and his thinking. and the idea that someone would say that he had mental health problemsproblems would be like stabbing him, right? he was not -- he didn't want that at all. i mean that is not something in public to have that and he also felt it would denigrate from the

ideas in the manifesto which i would recommend you read. it is about 30 pages and really quite good. it is not violent. his views about what technology will do to your society, some a lot better now than they did back in 1997 or 1996 and also about mind control and those kinds of problems. when he had agreed to this arrangement, first of all, the big thing that it came up early on was who makes the decision as to what a defense has put on when a person is represented by counsel? our position was it is clear you cannot -- there is certain things that a defendant with counsel decides for themselves. one of them is what plea to make. they also decide whether there will be an insanity plea because that in effect is a plea of guilty and by reason of insanity. one reason that was not raised here. whether it will take -- whether

they will take the stand and address the judge. four or five of them. our position was that and we thought the case law supported it, was other than that, it is up to the attorneys to determine how to proceed in support of the not guilty plea. and we thought the law supportd that and i think it did. but it isen wasn't by the u.s. supreme core. judgesupreme court. judge burrell agreed on that. as long as we were his lawyers we would decide what witnesses to call and how it pick and jury and do all of the things that lawyers do. early on there was this brokered deal when he was upset again about the idea of his mental health coming in that we would drop the ex-pets perts ex-pets experts from the guilt phase. later we had to drop them even from the penalty face because he

refused to see the government's psychiatrist. the reason he didn't want to see the government's eye kye trust was he was afraid hard to believe, that the government psychiatrist would find him mentally ill his big fear. in any case, he did not want us to put on that testimony about -- and what we were going to do is we were going to try to explain his menial illness through other evidence. his lifestyle and where he had started from and gone to and how he ended up being a whiz kid who skipped two years in high school and went to harvard on a scholarship and got a phd in no time from michigan and then end up living this this cabin in this kind of crazy lie. we brought the cabin down from montana and stored it at the air force base and we were going to have jury see it. you cannot imagine -- calling it a cabin sounds like it is an

a-frame. this was like 10 by. two windows and a big pot steve. no running water. no toilet. it was more like a cell than anything else. and for him to voluntarily go there we thought would help them understand his mental problems which i think fed his schizophrenia. sitting there in the dark in montana from 3 tile until 10:00 in the moring moring with no electionity or anything. but he we wanted to put this on and he did not want that. there was some back and forth on it in meetings and attempts to see if there is sol way we could fulfill our obligation and try to save his life and he would be satisfied with that. and there is even talk about another attorney coming in, kevin cleima who was an experienced defense attorney came in to counsel ted and give him advice independent of us

where we weren't involved and in the end he declared after backs and forths that couldn't believe seemed like it was resolved it is not resolved, he decided that he wanted to represent himself. he declared a faretta right that says you can represent yourself in a criminal trial. carry from there or stop at that point? >> in context this takes place at the jury selection? >> yect correct. >> and after you had the discussion with judy clarke telling him what she plans to say in the opening statement. >> that is what triggers his first dern in addressing the -- concern in addressing the judge about it. further proceedings and he seems to be mollified with other changes made and expresses his concern again and then finally i think maybe on the third time he says i want to represent myself i'm asking to do it which is the f and retta request.

we felt we had to declare a reasonable doubt about his competency to make that decision. usually if the lawyers declare and there is basis for it and we certainly had enough basis to it the judge will order an evaluation of the defendant and hold a competency hearing and decide for him st. louis whether theself whether theperson is competent or not. and that is what happened here. >> what did judge burrell rule? >> the first thing that happened was he agreed that ted had to be examined and eval evaluated for competency. it was agreed after some back and forth between the government and the defense that rather than send him off to a federal medical center and because of the time problems with the jury coming in we would ask to have someone come outed a evaluate him and the government or may have been judge burrell arranged for dr. sally johnson the chief

of the federal medical complex in buttner to come out here and look into the cause and read whatever she needed and talk to ted and make a decision as to his competency. she did all that and heard from the government and heard from us. she came back with a report that said that he was a paranoid schizophrenic but she did not feel that because of that he was unable to assist his lawyers in his defense. that is the standard for competency and therefore that he was competent to make the decision to represent himself. then the question was whether judge burrell would grant the motion and the judge denied it on two grounds. one was that it was gonotomely becauseuntimely andthe other was that

it was being mid for purposes of delay and therefore said you cannot represent yourself you will stay with these tones and attorneys and then i can talk about what happened after that. >> what did the judge of the rulings on the issues? >> we were dealing with issues that were fact bound and the government was flying in the blind to a certain extent because a lot of hearings had been conducted in camera. so as they should have been. and so we at any time know exactly what was taking place. we were concerned about the issue because if anything is going to get you reversed it will be an issue like faretta which involves a defendant's

constitutional right. and we were concerned about the findings that it was for purposes of delay bearing in mind that kaczynski had first raised concerns as early as november 25. the judge very meticulously went back and looked at the jury selection proceedings and determined, picked apart the record and determined that kaczynski must have knowned a that early stage that a -- that there was a mental defense and so that was the basis for the judge's conclusion that his later request to represent himself which occurred i think it must have been six weeks later was untimely and that what he was presently engaged in was

for purposes of delay. we didn't see it necessarily that way. i felt that kaczynski being a lay person was wrapped up in issues that he was only gradually coming to understand. and judge burrell did address those issues and whether or not a lay person would be expected to know how these things were unfolding so he is not unaware of the issue either. from our standpoint we were very concerned that that was a live issue. >> how did that issue or that concern affect your desire to continue to go ahead and seek the death penalty? >> well, we were fully prepared to stat trial on january 5 and then afterwards the next day

january 22, i think when all of the proceedings were finished we were fully prepared to go forward with the trial. we had had some discussions with the defense in december i believe it was and they made some demands which we couldn't accede to so those discussions were cut off. >> quin, what happened neck? happened next? >> have to go pack to with happened in december. ima' not sure of the timing of it. we went back to washington again and presented further mitigation evidence to the capital review committee or whatever they are called asking them to remove the death penalty from the case and they declined to do so. we then approached later in the fall maybe december is right we approached the local prosecutors steve and his team to see if

they would entertain an offer to plead guilty and remove the death penalty with two conditions. one condition would be northerlyally if you plead guilty you wave your right to challenge rulings like the suppression motion. we wanted to know we wanted to be able to preseven right to appeal the suppression motion which there is a procedure for doing but the government has to agree to it and at the time we wanted to know whether they would agree that he would not be sent to a mental institution. and as opposed to any other place, bureau of prisons had under its control or the department of justice and they declined to do that. >> so what happened after the -- >> what happened afterward then is we were on maybe the 22nd of january ted has been found mentally ill but competent and

also denied the right to represent himself so he has us as his lawyers. knows that we will put on in terms of evidence to try to save his life. and at that time actually right after judge burrell's ruling i approached the bench and said we wanted to plead guilty to all of the crimes here and new jersey for no death penalty and without those other two conditions. >> and the got accepted this a? >> we did. >> did you have to consult with the attorney general? >> yes, we did. and she gave her approval. >> what were some of the considerations? >> i had had some discussions with the solicitor general in the interim about the twin rulings that we had been talking about that the denial of the faretta request and the ruling that kaczynski was not in charge of his own defense. we discussd that with the solicitor general and

acknowledged that there wasn't very much case law on it and that we are dealing with really some very cutting edge issues. the solicitor general indicated that he thought that there was litigation risk there, that if we had -- if we went through with the entire trial it is possible it could be reversed and we communicated that pack to thefact tothe attorney general and the attorney general received that information as well as other information. she had already been apprised, of course, of the december negotiations regarding their offer to plead so it is not like she wasn't prepared for -- to receive that type of offer now. >> how many bombings did he plead guilty to? >> he plead to all five of the charged bombings including the one that was charged in new jersey. but we took a factual basis to all 16 of the bombs so he admitted to all 16.

>> in the rule 11 proceedings the judge usually asks the defendant some questions. when the judge asked him his occupation do you recall what his answer was? >> he said something i suppose i'm an inmate or something like that. >> prison inmate. >> yes. >> what sentence did he receive? >> four consecutive life sentences. >> as an epilog, what happened to the land upon which the cabin was situated? >> a couple years after the criminal proceedings came to a conclusion, a woman stepped forward asking to purchase the land unlike other possessions pretty much you have to sell the land to somebody. you can't just sit there

titleless. so we did some investigation of her and finally decided that we would not stand in the way of that purchase and the judge signed off of the purchase of the one and a quarter acre parcel that the cabin sat on. >> what happened to the cabin itself? it remained at the air force base for a number of years. i think just reeseently in just recently in the last couple of years, maybe five years was transported to the museum in washington, d.c. which is where it is mow. >> inow. >> the f.b.i. took it and held it for awhile and then moved it to the museum as part of an exhibit there about this case. >> how about all of contents of the cabin? what happened to them? >> well, after a bunch of litigation there was an order made that they -- that the contents should be sold by the marshalls and the proceeds should be given to the victims as part of -- in payment of

restitution. >> that essentially closes the book. we are running a little late but i wan to ask each panelists if they could close with a one or two minute statement about what you learned as a result of this whole experience and what it means to you. >> thank you, judge. i learned and had reiterated a lesson that there is no way whether it is the f.b.i., federal, state, local agencies that we could ever come close to solving these kinds of crimes especially the ones involving lone actors without help from the public and i think many times when you look at how something comes together you don't realize that in many of these in fact recent terrorist cases cases or acts of terror where they are prevented by someone aall right in the public deciding to do something about it and take the information they have or outhear observation of someone in many other cases the case is solved and people arrested it takes tremendous courage and conviction and decency to come forward and then

to begin the work with us of trying to pull things together and when i look back at this and i think of all of those qualities that david possessed people such as the victims who like gary who were always constantly there for us even and showed such great courage with the things that happened to them, i think it touches you deeply and maybes you realize why you got in law enforcement. but it sevens as a constant reminder we have to go to the public and give them asp as much as we can give them to use their support and help to bring these cases to a conclusion. >> gary? >> i could probably talk about that for a long time. squeezing that into a couple of minutes, i guess the couple of things i learned would be that i don't think anybody knows what they are going to do with something like this until you are actually in it. you learn a lot about that. a lot about yourself. a lot about people. you learn a lot about the people sitting at this table. lots and lots of people that i dealt with through a lot of years.

especially not knowing for nine years who it was. a lot of friendships developed on all sides of law enforcement and prosecution defense. i have a lot of friends that way. kind of echoing a little bit what terry said. i felt like it was my job to get out and do what i could as a victim if you will because i don't really like the word as the judge mentioned i'm is survivor. paris hilton is a victim. just thought i would put that out there. but, yeah, in my world i mean i was approached to go out and to things like unsolved mysteries and montreal expos' montreal america's most wanted and there is a certain amount of risk that goes with that, when somebody is coming back at you or not but that is the way in my world things worked. my dad as state trooper so i grew up that way so i more or less appreciated a lot around

the system. i appreciated what it offered me and the ability that i actually had a voice. when you are in the middle of that i think it is -- well, in my world the job to get up and say you have a voice. so i continue to do that. >> thank you. >> quin? excuse me, steve. >> i was going going to say -- >> all right. >> well, i don't know if these are great insights or anything but i came away from the experience with a couple of thoughts. one is in -- i think terry o agreewouldagree with this entirely. you to constantly reexamine your assumptions. there were so many many false leads in this case. instances where we thought we had the unabomber on the line this has to be the guy. there are coincidences that can't be explained away. and they were explained away. and so constantly when i hold

that with me when i was conducting investigations after that. i would continue to reexamine the assumptions. the other one has nothing to do with law. it has more to do with the the fickleness of fate. there were several of these instances that could easily have resulted in the death of more individuals. gil murray the victim of bomb number 16 which occurred just about five blocks from this building, the package was delivered in a big one of those white mail tubs to the business. the bomb was actually sitting on top. the mail was late that day. so, all of the employees of the timber association were kind of congregating around the receptionary to get their mail. gil murray was called out to receive his package which wasn't even addressed to him. it was addressed to the prior president. it was a very tightly wrapped

package with brown packing paper. it was designed to detonate when the tension on that packing paper was released. so if you just released the tape that is enough to explode the devis. the f.b.i. still doesn't know how that was possible. gil murray comes out and there are about eight people standing around the counter leafing through mail and having discussions when gil murray is trying to open this package. he is having difficulty because it so tightly wrapped he can't do it with his fingers so he asks the receptionist for a pair of sis hes as this is going on -- scissors. people are filtering away. one gets a phone call and has to go back to his office and another called a coworker aside to a hallway to talk about some point. other people are simply getting their mail and going back. as he is handing -- as the reception i have is handing scissors to gil murray she gets

a phone call. the caller wants to know the number of another person. it is not on the rolodex at the reception desk. the receptionist who is just filling in for the real receptionist for the lunch hour says the caller on hold goes back to her office to retrieve the information. she gets about 10 steps outside the hall when the bomb explodes. gil murray is the only one killed because he is the only one left in the reception area at that time. had the bomb exploded 30 seconds earlier there probably would have been a half a dozen fatalities. the same story with thomas mosier the victim of bomb 15. his wife and 1 1/2-year-old daughter come into the kitchen just as he is starting to open the package. the daughter needs a diaper changed. the wife does a 180 and leaves

the area and goes back to do the diaper change. the bomb explodes and thomas mosier is killed instantly. there are other examples of that. but i just hold on to that thought that you know as you say but for the grace of god we could have had a lot of -- a lot more fatalities. thank you. >> i guess what i take away from it is a great admiration or respect for david kaczynski. he and his mom were estranged interest ted because of ted's mental illness but they were very supportive of him and when actually i think as gary says it was david's wife who started saying could that be ted and then when he realized he thought it could be and he was jut just torn between this, on the one hand this is my brother and if i turn him in what will they do to hill and if i don't and he is really

the unabomber, more people will be killed. and he went through that horrible back and forth and then with the help of this wonderful lawyer from washington d.c., tony, came forward and it was the key to this case. i don't know if the task force would have got there sooner or later but would have been awhile i think. and david was given a rewardion a million dollars i think and he dedicated it to helping other victims. he was going to use it solely for that. he and gary have become friends i think is a fair statement and have gone together to talk to victims' groups and to gary can speak more of that but he has continued in that area and the death penalty area and also has come together with a -- the brother of a fellowpy the name of manny babbitt who was a california state capital defendant and the brother of map any babb babbitt turned him in and

the state executed him. so the two of them go out and talk about victims and responsibility. so i think they are wonderful. and i think gary is wonderful. he has been much more giving whatever words than any -- than i ever would have been. >> thank you. >> tank you. this concludes the presentation. we want to invite all of you to attend the reception in the anthony m. kennedy learning center downstairs where there will not only be refresh-s but refresh refreshments but the panelists will' available and photographs and evidence of that would have been used at the trial of the united states versus theodore kaczynski had the trial actually gone forward. tankthan