(January 9) -- A day after an apparent suicide attempt by Theodore Kaczynski, attorneys will choose a psychiatrist to determine if the alleged Unabomber is competent to present his own defense.

Kaczynski made an urgent plea through his lawyers on Thursday to be allowed to defend himself in his trial. He and his attorneys have long been sparring over the issue of the mental defect defense they want to present on his behalf. Yesterday, Judy Clarke, one of his defense lawyers, said he felt the mental defect strategy was a "situation that he cannot endure."

"This is a very difficult position for him," she said in court yesterday. "He believes that he has no choice but to go forward as his own lawyer."

U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell indicated he was tentatively willing to allow Kaczynski to represent himself, but only if the Harvard-educated recluse would undergo psychiatric evaluation to prove he was competent to prepare a defense.

Kaczynski, who for months refused to submit to government-ordered psychiatric tests and has showed repeated hostility towards mental health professionals, agreed to the court-ordered examination.

Burrell gave both sides in the case until 4 p.m. PST Friday to find a mutually-selected psychiatrist who will perform the tests to determine Kaczynski's competency.

But Kaczynski's situation became more tenuous after reports yesterday that U.S. Marshals and local officials believed he tried to hang himself with his underwear on Wednesday night, before coming into court Thursday to plead for another option in his defense.

Sacramento County Undersheriff Lou Blanas described how officials came to the conclusion Kaczynski had tried to hang himself

According to Sacramento County Undersheriff Lou Blanas, U.S. Marshals informed him Kaczynski had made a suicide attempt, had a red mark on the right side of his neck and was not wearing his underwear briefs as he changed for court Thursday morning. When Kaczynski was questioned about the missing garment, he told officials he lost it in the shower.

Deputies later found them in his cell, stretched out as though they had been used to hang something.

In response, officials moved Kaczynski to a constantly-monitored cell in the psychiatric ward on the second floor of the Sacramento County jail. They also placed the infamous technophone on a heart monitor which will insure nurses of his status at all times.

Judge Burrell assigned Sacramento defense lawyer Kevin Clymo to represent Kaczynski in the matter of his competency

Judge Burrell also assigned Sacramento defense lawyer Kevin Clymo to represent Kaczynski in the matter of his competency testing.

The competency testing, which could take up to two weeks to complete, will help the court determine if Kaczynski is able to represent himself at trial -- and if he is competent to stand trial at all.

Some of the competency standards are relatively easy to meet: a defendant must be able to understand the nature of the proceedings and must be able to assist lawyers in preparing a defense.

But defendants also need to be able to make rational decisions about defense strategy, said Richard Bonnie, director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, and that last standard will be difficult to prove in Kaczynski's case, especially because of Kaczynski's reticence when it comes to psychiatrists.

"In order to do a decent job of assessment, they need to be able to explore what he thinks about things and how he feels about certain things," said Bonnie. "Given Kaczynski's general guardedness, we don't know how cooperative he is going to be."

Judge Burrell will also need to consider what strategies Kaczynski might use in defending himself in order to insure the trial does not devolve into a chaotic travesty, as happened in the 1995 trial of Colin Ferguson, who unsuccessfully defended himself after shooting six people and injuring 19 on the Long Island Railroad.

"You really do not want the trial to become a farce," said Bonnie. "That should legitimately be on the judge's mind."

The current trial will cover incidents in 1985 and 1995, as well as two bombings in 1993. A separate trial will cover charges against Kaczynski for a 1994 bombing in New Jersey.

Federal authorities believe that Kaczynski, 55, is the Unabomber, responsible for sixteen mail and package bombs that killed three people and injured 23 during between 1978 and 1995 in attacks across the country. He was arrested on April 3, 1996 in his Montana cabin, where he had lived for most of the past 26 years.

During the early stages of the case, federal authorities coined the name "Unabomber" because universities and airlines were early targets.