EDITORIAL : UNABOMBER GETS LIFE; KACZYNSKI PLEADS GUILTY TO ALL CHARGES AND SAVES HIS LIFE.

ADMITTED Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski lost his freedom but won his life, and it is fair to wonder whether justice was served.

Even though we earlier urged the Justice Department not to accept a plea agreement, in this case Kaczynski's unconditional guilty plea was in the best interest of all concerned.

The bizarre twists and tortuous turns in this trial even before opening statements from lawyers proved that Kaczynski was adept at causing chaos, delaying the process and possibly subverting justice through appeals.

He fought with his own attorneys; he repeatedly tried to fire them and act as his own attorney; he attempted suicide; and finally, a court-appointed psychiatrist diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic but competent to stand trial.

Given that experts agreed on his condition, a jury might well have found Kaczynski not guilty by reason of insanity.

His demands to dismiss his court-appointed lawyers also raised serious, appealable issues based on the Sixth Amendment right to self-representation.

On Thursday just before pleading guilty, Kaczynski again requested to represent himself, which U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. rejected.

If an appeals court later ruled that Burrell's decision was incorrect, any guilty verdict reached at trial could have been overturned.

Even if a jury had convicted him of killing three people and injuring two others, it was doubtful a judge would have imposed the death sentence because of Kaczynski's mental illness.

For those who wanted Kaczynski to face the death penalty for his terrorist acts, they argue that he understood the charges against him and was found competent to stand trial.

By his own diary admission, he set out to kill people during an 18-year-long series of bombings. And he succeeded, killing three people and injuring 28 others.

He systematically terrorized individuals and for a time, held a nation hostage to fear with threats of blowing up airlines in a meticulous and cold-blooded campaign aimed at challenging society.

If he was clever enough to elude authorities for almost two decades, was he not clever enough to stage a charade and thwart justice?

Even as the judge accepted Kaczynski's plea, Burrell accused him of ``a deliberate attempt to manipulate the trial process.''

However, under the circumstances, the judge and prosecutors had no choice but to spare the country a lengthy and costly legal circus in which the outcome was far from certain.

In exchange for his life, Kaczynski accepted an unconditional plea that includes a life sentence without the possibility of parole. And he gave up the right to appeal any rulings in the case.

He did not get off. He will not go free.

But we sympathize with his victims and their families who see a calculating killer who manipulated the system.