proRo: problem

You are a public defender who is vehemently opposed to capital punishment.  The court has appointed you to represent Ted Kaczynski, who has been charged with mailing package bombs to university professors over a period of nearly 20 years.  The bombs killed three people and injured many others.  K's alleged motive was that by killing his victims, he was fighting the spread of technological culture.  The prosecutor is seeking the death penalty.

 

K had once been a professor of mathematics at MIT.  In the early 1970s he became a recluse, moving to a cabin in Montana.  He was captured after a nationwide manhunt that lasted for several years.  And he was captured only because his brother turned him in after recognizing his writing style in the manifesto that K sent to the newspapers.  The FBI searched his cabin and turned up substantial physical evidence linking him to the bombings.

 

You have interviewed K a number of times; he is highly intelligent, well educated (with a Ph.D. from a leading institution), and very articulate.  He also seems troubled.  He is deeply committed to his belief that human society is being destroyed by the spread of technology.  You are not a psychiatrist, but you suspect that medical experts might conclude that he suffers from schizophrenia.

 

After adequate research, you explain to K that there are only two viable defense options. 

(1) There are arguably some flaws in the procedure through which the FBI got authorization to search his cabin.  You might be able to win on a suppression motion.  But the chance that the judge would suppress evidence in a case like this is extremely small.

(2) A more promising strategy would be to assert a defense based on mental disability.  But K dreads being labeled mentally ill, so you propose a very limited mental disability defense -- arguing that K had sufficient mental capacity to be responsible for his crimes, but that he was sufficiently impaired that he shouldn't be convicted of 1st degree murder.  So he would not be killed by the state.

 

You consult with a psychiatrist before presenting these options to K, but the psychiatrist said he would need to interview K for several days and administer several tests -- all of which would require K's consent and cooperation -- in order to form an opinion.

 

So you recommend to K that he submit to the psych exam.  But K reacts angrily: he favors the suppression angle, and thinks that the merits of suppression are strong.  K also says that if the evidence from the search was not suppressed, he wants to defend his bombings as justified (not excused) to prevent the technological threat.  He wants to try to persuade the jury that he was trying to save humanity.  He is bitterly opposed to psychiatry in principle as part of the same technological evils that he perceived himself to be fighting against.

 

If you could prove that K was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia when he committed his crimes, you could probably get him a life sentence; barring the unlikely suppression, that appears to be the only way you could save his life.  But K steadfastly refuses to submit to the exam.

 

Because the government is looking for the death penalty, the upcoming jury trial will have two phases.  In phase 1, the jury will determine whether K is innocent or guilty and, if guilty, whether he committed first or second degree murder.  Psychiatric evidence showing that he suffers from schizophrenia could be used in the first phase to show that K was guilty only of second degree murder.  If K is found guilty of first degree murder, psychiatric testimony could be used in the second phase to try to show "mitigating circumstances" warranting a life rather than a death sentence.

 

Here are your options:

 

1.  Allow K to try to persuade a jury that his bombings were justified to protect society from greater disasters.  This is what K wants to do, but it has virtually no chance of succeeding and will probably lead to a death sentence.

 

2.  Over K's objection, ask the judge to order a psychiatric exam.  Here, you would need to try to persuade the judge that K may be a schizophrenic, and that you, rather than he, should be making decisions about what defenses to raise.  This strategy is also unlikely to work.  The judge may refuse to order the test over K's objections.  Also, K might fire you and withdraw your request.

 

3.  A compromise.  Try to persuade K that he should submit to a psych. exam, but explain the purpose of the exam this way:

A.  Tell him that if evaluation shows he is mentally unimpaired, the results can be used to show that his views are not the crazed ramblings of a crazy man.

B.  Tell him (falsely) that if the evaluation shows that he is mentally impaired, you will not use the results during the "guilt" phase of the trial, but only to argue against the death penalty during the penalty phase.  K might agree to this plan because he is convinced that he will be acquitted and that there will never be a penalty phase.

 

If K allows the exam and it shows that he is mentally impaired, you actually intend to use the findings to persuade the judge to let you make the strategic decisions in the case.  Then you'll present the psychiatric evidence during the first phase of the trial.  That seems to be the only way that has a chance at saving his life.

 

In thinking about this problem, consider Rules 1.2, 1.4, and 1.14.