Accused Trump assassin’s request to push trial date not an ‘unreasonable delay’: judge
The trial for the man accused of plotting to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida earlier this year has been pushed back until September 2025, according to media reports.
Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was set to go to trial Feb. 10, 2025, but U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said in an order this week that moving the Hawaiian resident’s trial to begin Sept. 8 instead didn’t amount to an ‘unreasonable delay,’” according to an Associated Press report.
Routh’s attorneys had urged Cannon, who tossed out the classified documents criminal case against Trump this summer, for a December trial date to review evidence and decide whether to pursue an insanity defense, the report said.
Evidence includes hundreds of hours of police body camera and surveillance videos, along with the 17 cellphones and “numerous other electronic devices” owned by Routh, his attorneys argued at a hearing earlier this month, according to the AP.
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“In her order, Cannon said she wanted to err on the side of providing more time given the seriousness of the allegations, but that starting the trial no earlier than December would be an excessive amount,” the publication said. It added that the conservative jurist set a February deadline for defense attorneys to mount an insanity defense, and also ordered that any request related to his mental competency also be made in early February.
Prosecutors say a U.S. Secret Service agent fired one gunshot toward Routh after spotting him holding a rifle on Sept. 15 near the Trump International Golf Course. A criminal complaint shows that Routh may have been lying in wait for Trump for nearly 12 hours before agents spotted him, and he was arrested a short time later after police saw him driving in the vehicle identified by a witness.
Routh remains in a Miami federal prison where he is being held without bail. He faces life in prison if convicted of attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate.