FORT PIERCE, Fla. — Ryan Routh was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday in federal court after he was found guilty last year of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon handed down the sentence, plus a mandatory additional seven years for a firearm offense, for Routh, who was convicted of trying to kill Trump, then a presidential candidate, at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach in September 2024.
Cannon harshly rebuked Routh, calling his assassination plot "evil."
"It is clear to me, Mr. Routh, that life imprisonment is reasonable," Cannon said Thursday. "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 spotted Routh hiding in the shrubbery near the fifth hole of Trump’s golf club.
Routh also addressed the court Wednesday, calling his sentence "unimportant" in a long speech that Cannon eventually cut off.
"America stands on human rights," Routh said, saying that “harming someone is totally wrong" and "we need to care for our fellow man."
Prosecutors had been asking for a life sentence, writing in a sentencing memorandum that he “remains totally unrepentant” and that “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.”
"To this day, he has not expressed remorse or regret," prosecutor John Shipley said at the hearing, arguing that Routh "intended a cold-blooded killing" to "upend democracy."
Shipley added: “It is not American or democratic to settle a political grievance with a bullet.”
Routh, who represented himself during the trial, was assigned a court-appointed attorney to help him prepare for his sentencing hearing.
The attorney, Martin Roth, argued in a court document last month that Routh did not “commit an act of terrorism” and asked Cannon to issue a “term of 20 years, followed by the required 7-year mandatory sentence” for his firearm conviction in relation to the assassination attempt. Routh would “be in custody into his eighties and would not pose any threat to cause harm to the public," Roth said.
Roth argued Wednesday that his client "decided not to pull the trigger" and that he "has always tried to do important things."
"He’s a complex person, I’ll give the court that, but he has a good core," Roth added.
Routh was arrested in September 2024. According to prosecutors, he was waiting for Trump to get into his line of fire.
Friends and relatives submitted letters of support to the court.
Routh’s son Adam wrote that his father “wants to move forward in the right way and continue to be someone who contributes to our family and his community” and added that “we still need him, and he still has people who love and support him.”
Nancy Meyers, Routh’s sister, asked Cannon to consider placing her brother in a prison facility in North Carolina, saying the family was "devastated" by his actions but "committed to assisting him with his rehabilitative efforts.”
Wednesday's hearing was the first time Routh had been back in court since he tried to stab himself in the neck with his pen after his guilty verdict was read last year. U.S. marshals quickly escorted him out of the courtroom.
During the closing of the two-week trial, Routh delivered a brief and disjointed argument in which he tried to argue that there was no crime because he never fired a shot at Trump. Routh brought up the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on Capitol Hill and began talking about Ukraine, Founding Father Patrick Henry and the “common man,” before Cannon put a halt to his argument.
After just over two hours of deliberations, the jury of seven women and five men found Routh guilty on all five counts, which included three federal gun charges and an assault on the Secret Service agent who rousted him from his hiding place.
Routh underwent a medical evaluation before the trial. In its sentencing memorandum, the government wrote that a private psychiatrist retained by Routh's former counsel "ultimately acknowledged that Routh had no basis to claim incompetence, insanity, or diminished capacity, but did propose that Routh suffers from two disorders [Narcissistic Personality Disorder and a Bipolar II diagnosis].”
The government said Routh made no effort to explain how the supposed conditions related to his crimes or how they excused his criminal conduct.
Routh's attorney asked that his client receive mental health treatment while he is in custody after he is sentenced.
