(January 12) -- Tests to determine whether Theodore Kaczynski is able to defend himself or stand trial at all will be conducted this week, with a report expected by Friday.

Dr. Sally Johnson, the government psychiatrist who found John Hinckley and Jim Bakker competent to stand trial, will conduct the exams at the Sacramento County jail where Kaczynski is currently being held.

However, U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell ordered that the report be sealed, though the hearing based on its findings will be public.

In bringing Dr. Johnson into the case, Burrell made clear that he expects Kaczynski to work with her.

"If he's not going to cooperate, he will be on a plane, and I will fly him to a psychiatric institution immediately," said Burrell. The testing would then occur there.

Johnson arrived in Sacramento Monday to begin her work. The competency hearing involving her testimony is set for January 22.

If Kaczynski is found competent at that point, the jury will be brought in and the trial will resume. However, if she needs it, Johnson will have up to thirty days to report on Kaczynski's status.

Meanwhile, Newsweek magazine reported that the Justice Department is considering another possible plea by Kaczynski -- one which would spare his life -- but only if he and his lawyers rule out the possibility of appeal.

Kaczynski made an urgent request 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.

"This is a very difficult position for him," defense lawyer Judy Clarke said Thursday. "He believes that he has no choice but to go forward as his own lawyer."

The competency testing ordered last week will attempt to establish a number of issues crucial to deciding if the trial can move forward.

Some 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 it is possible that proof will be needed that Kaczynski can 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 could be difficult to prove, especially because of psychiatrists' difficulties in getting a grip on Kaczynski's mentality.

"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."

It is also likely that Johnson will talk to Kaczynski's lawyers and others involved with the case before making a decision in order to verify whatever Kaczynski tells her -- since defendants frequently offer a one-sided view of the case.

"Sometimes what they tell you is not the whole story," said Paul Applebaum, M.D., director of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. "As far as the behavioral component of the standard is concerned, the attorney is the expert, because he or she is able to tell you the extent to which the defendant is cooperating."

And though Johnson is an expert at competency issues, it is unclear just how far Johnson will go during the forthcoming competency hearing towards offering her thoughts on whether Kaczynski is fit for trial.

"Some psychiatrists will take the next step and actually offer an opinion on the ultimate legal question, some psychiatrists will not," said Applebaum.

If she does not suggest a course of action, she may simply give the precise findings of her tests.

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.