Left: Aileen M. Cannon speaks remotely during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight nomination hearing to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in 2020, in Washington (U.S. Senate via AP). Right: Ryan Wesley Routh arrested by deputies in Florida on Sept. 15, 2024 (Martin County Sheriff’s Office).
The 58-year-old man accused of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump at one of his Florida golf resorts earlier this year is asking for help from one of the president-elect’s most favored judges as he seeks to have his federal criminal trial pushed back by nearly a year.
Ryan W. Routh on Sunday filed a motion asking U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, to move the high-profile case from February 2025 to December 2025, court documents reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Routh asserts that going to trial in two months would deprive him of his constitutional rights as his counsel would be unable to provide a proper defense.
“Discovery delays and the extraordinary volume of discovery have made the current trial schedule incompatible with Mr. Routh’s due process rights,” Assistant Federal Public Defender Renee M. Sihvola wrote in the 18-page motion to continue trial. “The pace and quantity of discovery production, and the need to process disclosed materials into a usable form, prevent counsel at this time from providing a definitive estimate of the number of hours required for review. What is clear, however, is that the diligent efforts of counsel will be insufficient to prepare a case of this magnitude for trial on February 10, 2025. Proceeding with the scheduled trial or anytime soon thereafter – on charges punishable by life imprisonment – would result in a miscarriage of justice.”
Routh in September 2024 was arrested in Florida after a Secret Service agent allegedly spotted him with a rifle “in the exterior brush along the fence line near the 6th hole putting green” at the Trump International Golf Club as the former president golfed one hole behind. Authorities have said that the agent opened fire, leading Routh to flee the scene in a Nissan Xterra.
After Routh was caught, federal agents said they found a letter addressed to the “world” stating that “[t]his was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I am so sorry I failed you.” Investigators also said that Routh had been camped out for some 12 hours apparently waiting for Trump to golf.
Routh was later indicted on charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, being a felon in possession of a firearm, possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number, and using a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.
The case was then assigned to Cannon, who controversially dismissed special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal case against Trump for his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Cannon’s assignment was not well received by Routh’s defense attorney, who in October demanded that she recuse herself from his case. Routh argued that Cannon’s appointment by Trump, her dismissal of the Mar-a-Lago case, Trump’s repeated praise of her as “brilliant” in public, and the “prospect” of a potential “promotion” to the U.S. Supreme Court all raised questions about whether she could be impartial in the attempted assassination case given her “relationship to the alleged victim.”
Routh later filed court documents questioning whether Cannon had truly been assigned the case at random
Federal prosecutors have backed keeping Cannon on the case, saying that Routh failed to cite to any legal authority requiring her recusal, offering little more than speculation without a “sufficient legal or factual basis[.]”
Cannon has similarly refused to step away from the case, saying that she is not required to do so.
“Defendant cites a series of factors which he believes, when viewed in their totality, create an appearance of partiality,” Cannon wrote in an October order responding to the recusal demand. “None warrants recusal, whether examined individually or together.”
After noting the fact of Trump appointing her to a lifetime judgeship does not by itself mean she needs to recuse herself (see: Trump v. Clinton), Cannon said she has “no control” over what Trump says about her, that she has “no ‘relationship to the alleged victim’ in any reasonable sense of the phrase” (since she’s never met him or spoken with him, “except in connection with his required presence at an official judicial proceeding, through counsel), said the “prospect of a judicial promotion” is wholly “speculative,” and said that the Routh case was definitely assigned to her randomly.
Matt Naham contributed to this report.
