The Alphabet Bomber by Jeffrey D. Simon

Author:Jeffrey D. Simon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS036140 History / United States / State & Local / West (ak, Ca, Co, Hi, Id, Mt, Nv, Ut, Wy), POL037000 Political Science / Terrorism, TRU002000 True Crime / Murder / General
Publisher: Potomac Books

The Ping-Pong Strategy

When Kurbegovic was brought to court, the judge who was scheduled to preside, Raymond Choate, expressed doubt as to his competency to stand trial, as defined by section 1367 of the California Penal Code: “A person cannot be tried or adjudged to punishment while such a person is mentally incompetent. A defendant is mentally incompetent for purposes of this chapter if, as a result of mental disorder or developmental disability, the defendant is unable to understand the nature of the criminal proceedings or to assist counsel in the conduct of a defense in a rational manner.”18 One of the court-appointed psychiatrists who examined Kurbegovic had written to Choate that he believed Kurbegovic “is presently insane” and that “due to a paranoid psychosis he is not competent to stand trial.” Kurbegovic had told this psychiatrist (through writing notes) that he believed he’d been arrested again for lewd conduct, not for the LAX bombing.19

A competency hearing was scheduled for January 1975 before another judge, William Keene. A distinguished, bright, and ambitious man, Keene had been in the first graduating class of UCLA law school in 1952. He then became a deputy district attorney and after that went into private practice. He was appointed a municipal court judge in 1963 by Governor Pat Brown and promoted by Brown two years later to the Los Angeles Superior Court. He had hoped to be appointed by the Board of Supervisors to the position of district attorney in 1970, but the board chose another individual instead. During that same year, Keene had achieved a degree of national fame by presiding over part of Manson’s murder trial. He was eventually replaced after Manson filed an affidavit of prejudice. (Any defendant can file at least one affidavit of prejudice against a judge and have him or her removed from the case without giving a reason.) After he retired from the bench in 1984, Keene became a television star as the judge on the popular show Divorce Court.20

Having Keene as the judge for Kurbegovic’s competency hearing greatly worried Bozanich. Keene “was so bright that he would end up reducing any case that came in front of him,” Bozanich said. “He would quickly size it up, what it was worth and the way it should work out. The attorneys were reduced to hod carriers; it wasn’t really an adversary system. You either played ball or he would really take it out on you.”21

Not wanting to leave the determination of Kurbegovic’s competency in Judge Keene’s hands, Bozanich requested and was granted a jury trial, which was to be held in January 1975. Chaleff remained Kurbegovic’s lawyer for that trial. Bozanich was able to convince the jury that Kurbegovic had tricked all four court-appointed psychiatrists who’d examined him and that while Kurbegovic was a disturbed man, he was feigning an inability to understand the charges against him or to cooperate with an attorney. In cross-examination, Bozanich showed the psychiatrists the letter Kurbegovic had written to McCulloch seeking financial assistance in hiring a lawyer, an articulate and eloquently written letter the psychiatrists had not seen before.

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