Ryan W. Routh, suspected of attempting to assassinate Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump at his West Palm Beach golf course, stands handcuffed after his arrest during a traffic stop near Palm City, Florida, U.S., September 15, 2024.
Martin County Sheriff’s Office | Via Reuters
The trial of Ryan Wesley Routh came to a dramatic end Tuesday when he started stabbing himself in the neck with a pen after a Florida jury found him guilty of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump last year on a golf course.
After just two-and-half hours of deliberations, the panel also found Routh guilty of assaulting the Secret Service agent who rousted him from his hiding place and guilty of three federal gun charges stemming from the Sept. 15, 2024, incident.
Routh, who had pleaded not guilty to all the charges, now faces life in prison when he is sentenced.
The verdict came in not long after Routh capped his two-week trial, during which he served as his own attorney, by delivering a brief and disjointed closing argument during which he tried to argue that there was no crime because he never fired a shot at Trump.
But just 12 minutes into his monologue, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon interrupted Routh and scolded him for ignoring her order to “stay within the bounds of the case” after he started complaining that he wasn’t allowed to put more witnesses on the stand.
With the jury out of earshot, Routh then asked Cannon whether the public defenders who initially represented him, Kristy Militello and Renee Michelle Sihvola, could wrap up his closing argument if the judge interrupted him again.
Cannon said no, and when the jury returned Routh argued that “to merely have a weapon in the presence of another does not mean intent.”
But after Routh brought up the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill and began talking about Ukraine, founding father Patrick Henry and the “common man,” Cannon put a halt to his argument. In total, Routh spoke for about 42 minutes.
A 59-year-old Hawaii resident and former Trump supporter, Routh is charged with attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate and assaulting a federal officer, plus several firearm violations.
The government delivered its closing argument first, with prosecutor Christopher Browne telling the court that the suspect had planned to kill Trump “for a long, long time.”
“It is not every case where the defendant writes his intent down on a piece of paper,” Browne said during his closing statement.
Browne was referring to note Routh wrote before he was arrested. It was addressed “To the World” and stated plainly, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump.”
“This is not a whodunit,” Browne told jurors.
Starting with the pretrial hearings and throughout the trial in federal court here, Routh was admonished repeatedly by Cannon for disrupting the proceedings and asking witnesses questions that the judge deemed outside the scope of the case or irrelevant.
Courtroom sketch for Ryan RouthÂ
Artist:Â Lothar Speer
On Monday, Routh asked his own ballistics expert, Michael McClay, “Does it take a special kind of person to be able to take another person’s life?” Cannon called for a break before McClay could answer and later told Routh the question was “far outside the bounds.”
Routh called two character witnesses on the stand who testified that he was not violent and is a “jolly person.” After that, Routh announced, “I will not testify.”
When Cannon asked the accused man if he had enough time to think this momentous decision through, Routh answered, “A year.”
Routh was arrested after a Secret Service agent spotted him hiding in the shrubbery near the fifth hole of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach and, according to prosecutors, waiting for Trump to get into his line of fire.
Routh, who is not a lawyer, asked Cannon at a hearing in July for permission to represent himself after clashing with his court-appointed attorneys, saying they were “a million miles apart.”
Cannon reluctantly agreed, calling it a “bad idea,” but ordered the public defenders to stay in the courtroom on standby and ordered Routh not to approach the witnesses.
Federal prosecutors called 38 witnesses over a span of seven days who placed Routh at the scene and testified that the suspect could have killed Trump had he not been caught.
Routh called three witnesses and was done presenting his case before lunchtime Monday.
The closing arguments came two days after Trump spoke at a memorial service for the popular-but-polarizing conservative activist Charlie Kirk, whose murder on a Utah college campus earlier this month has ratcheted-up anxieties about political violence in the United States.
Cannon was appointed to the bench by Trump and is the same judge who dismissed the charges against the president after he was accused of mishandling classified documents at his home at Mar-a-Lago.
Juliette Arcodia reported from Fort Pierce, and Corky Siemaszko from New York City.
