Routh Will Spend Life in Prison for Trying to Shoot Trump

A man convicted of trying to assassinate President Trump on a Florida golf course in 2024 was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison. US District Judge Aileen Cannon pronounced Ryan Routh's fate in the same Fort Pierce courtroom that erupted into chaos in September when he tried to stab himself shortly after jurors found him guilty on all counts, reports the AP. The details:

• Prosecutors had asked for life without parole, saying in a sentencing memorandum that "Routh remains unrepentant for his crimes, never apologized for the lives he put at risk, and his life demonstrates near-total disregard for law."
• They added, per NBC News, "The heinous nature of this assassination attempt—his selfish, violent decision to prevent the American voters from electing President Trump by killing him first—that warrants severe criminal punishment."

• Martin Roth, a defense attorney brought in for his sentencing asked for 27 years. "The defendant is two weeks short of being sixty years old," Roth wrote in a filing. "A just punishment would provide a sentence long enough to impose sufficient but not excessive punishment, and to allow defendant to experience freedom again as opposed to dying in prison."
• Routh was convicted of trying to assassinate a major presidential candidate, using a firearm in furtherance of a crime, assaulting a federal officer, possessing a firearm as a felon, and using a gun with a defaced serial number. Routh also received a consecutive seven-year sentence for one of his gun convictions.

• Prosecutors said Routh spent weeks plotting to kill Trump before aiming a rifle through shrubbery as the Republican presidential candidate played golf on Sept. 15, 2024, at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. At Routh's trial, a Secret Service agent helping protect Trump on the golf course testified that he spotted Routh before Trump came into view. Routh aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing Routh to drop his weapon and run away without firing a shot.