U.S. Judge Aileen Cannon sentenced Ryan Routh, the man charged with attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump in September 2024, to life in prison.
Routh was convicted on five counts for his assassination plot on President Trump in 2024, during his election campaign, while the president was golfing at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. Judge Cannon also added seven years to his sentence for one of Routh’s firearm offenses.
During the sentencing, Judge Cannon told Routh, "your plot to kill was deliberate and evil. "You are not a peaceful man.”
"It is clear to me, Mr. Routh, that life imprisonment is reasonable," Cannon expressed. "Despite the evil, there is a sliver of good. ... We see the courage of good Americans ... in Agent Fercano," referring to Secret Service agent Robert Fercano, who discovered Routh hiding in the shrubbery in the Golf Club.
Routh attempted to address the court during the hearing, calling his conviction “unimportant” and referencing topics unrelated to his trial, such as Ukraine, before Judge Cannon eventually cut him off.
Routh, who represented himself throughout his trial, was assigned a court-appointed lawyer during his sentencing hearing upon request. The attorney, Martin Roth, claimed that Routh did not “commit an act of terrorism,” addressing his client’s mental health and age.
"He’s a complex person, I’ll give the court that, but he has a good core," Roth stated, adding that Routh "decided not to pull the trigger" and that he "has always tried to do important things."
Since Routh’s conviction, prosecutors have argued that Routh deserves a life sentence, citing that he “has since expressed neither regret nor remorse to his victims.”
Roth pushed back against prosecutors’ claims, arguing that Routh “was trying to tell people that might be influenced by him that political violence is never helpful. It's harmful to the democratic process and I think he was renouncing the thought that a political assassination is ever appropriate."
