FORT PIERCE, Fla. — The man accused of attempting to gun down Donald Trump on a Florida golf course last year is expected to make his final argument Tuesday after a two-week trial in which he served as his own attorney and was frequently scolded by the judge.
Ryan Routh, a 59-year-old Hawaii resident and former Trump supporter, is charged with attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate and assaulting a federal officer, plus several firearm violations.
Routh has pleaded not guilty and faces a sentence of life in prison if convicted of the most serious charge.
Starting with the pretrial hearings and throughout the trial in federal court here, Routh was admonished repeatedly by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon for disrupting the proceedings and asking witnesses questions that the judge deemed outside the scope of the case or irrelevant.
Ryan Wesley Routh following his arrest in Martin County, Fla., on Sept. 15, 2024.Martin County Sheriff’s Office via AFP – Getty Images
On Tuesday, 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 on Sept. 15, 2024, 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.
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.