But on Nov. 12, a Sacramento federal court will be the scene of the beginning of the Capitol's most widely watched court fight, and a nonpolitical trial, since the prosecution of Manson Family member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme for the attempted assassination of former President Gerald Ford in 1975. That's when the trial of a Harvard University-trained mathematics professor, Theodore Kaczynski, gets under way.

The 55-year-old Kaczynski, prosecutors say, is the anti-technology terrorist known as the Unabomber, who allegedly set 16 explosions across the nation from 1978 through 1995 that killed three people and injured 23 others. Two of his fatal victims -- computer store owner Hugh Scrutton and forestry lobbyist Gilbert Murray -- died in Sacramento, and federal prosecutors believe they have the strongest case here. Kaczynski is accused in a 10-count indictment of using bombs to kill Murray and Scrutton, and of injuring two others, and the looming trial has become the object of intense scrutiny from the national media.

Acting on a tip from Kaczynski's family, federal agents arrested the wilderness hermit at his tiny Montana cabin in April 1996, then transferred him to California two months later under extraordinary security.

For months, Kaczynski's court-appointed federal defenders and the Unabomber prosecution team have traded reams of pre-trial court briefs as they wrangle for position and prepare their cases. But after all the preliminary skirmishing is done, the crux of the case appears to be focusing on one issue -- Kaczynski's mental competence.

As the trial date nears, lead prosecutor Robert Cleary is seeking to have government psychiatrists examine Kaczynski at length in his prison cell, declaring the prosecution needs the tests in order to meet Kaczynski's likely defense of mental defect or disease. But the defense has fought the examination at every turn, contending that the psychiatrists might develop evidence that could be used against Kaczynski at the trial and violate his constitutional safeguards against self-incrimination.

U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr., a relative newcomer to the bench and a cautious jurist whose background is civil litigation, is handling the case and at times he appears uncomfortable in the harsh glare of media attention. Kaczynski himself appears detached from the brouhaha: He rarely appears in court for pre-trial motions, and on those occasions when he does show up he is casually dressed in slacks, sport coat and open-necked shirt, looking every inch the academic don with his neatly trimmed gray hair and beard.

The prosecution says there is a mountain of evidence against him, including Unabomber-related documents such as a journal in which he detailed the explosions and the typewriter on which the widely publicized Unabomber "manifesto" was written.

But whatever the results of the trial in Sacramento, which is expected to take five months, the final verdicts are all but certain to come from higher courts: The defense has already appealed the mental examination issue to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, and because the case is all but certain to involve the death penalty, the U.S Supreme Court may be the ultimate arbiter of Kaczynski's future.

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