Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Brett Kavanaugh watches as Taoiseach Micheal Martin speaks at a breakfast meeting hosted by U.S. Vice President JD Vance at his official residence in Washington D.C., as part of his weeklong visit to the U.S. on March 12, 2025, (Press Association via AP Images).
The California man who attempted to assassinate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared in court Tuesday and “accepted full responsibility for his conduct” by officially entering his guilty plea, minus the luxuries of a court deal.
Nicholas Roske, 28, admitted guilt in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, after his legal team announced last week that he would be doing so.
“Mr. Roske’s accountability began on June 8, 2022, when, in the throes of a mental health crisis, he called 911, told police where he was and what he was doing and asked for help,” his lawyer, Andrew Szekely, said in a statement announcing his guilty plea being entered, according to The New York Times. “After his call, Mr. Roske cooperated with the authorities to ensure he was safely taken into custody,” Szekely said.
Roske, who had been scheduled to go on trial on June 9, will now forego two more months of waiting — as well as the stress of the adversarial system — by making his admission of guilt, even though it comes without the guard rails of a plea deal with prosecutors, according to Roske’s notice of intent to plead guilty from last week.
“Because the parties have not entered into a plea agreement, this letter is meant to memorialize the factual basis for the plea and assist the Court in the Rule 11 colloquy,” the notice read.
Roske wound up pleading guilty to a felony count of attempting to kidnap or murder, or threatening to assault, kidnap, or murder a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice, after initially intending to take on the justice system and his criminal charges with a jury trial. “Roske appeared in court today and accepted full responsibility for his conduct by pleading guilty,” Szekely said, per The Times. He’s been locked up since being arrested in 2022 after calling the cops on himself near Kavanaugh’s home in the Washington, D.C., area.
In a concomitant letter filed last Tuesday, Roske’s attorneys said their client’s decision to plead guilty in the high-profile case is being made with the knowledge and consent of federal prosecutors.
Roske, a former substitute teacher from Simi Valley, became politically radicalized by the leaked Supreme Court decision overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade opinion.
Despite being armed with a Glock and other potential weapons, Roske was not driven to actual violence, with his federal criminal complaint outlining how the would-be assassin was intercepted by law enforcement before any shots were fired.
After being taken into custody and Mirandized, Roske told investigators that he was “upset about the leak of a recent Supreme Court draft decision regarding the right to abortion as well as the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.” Prosecutors said in court filings that he stated “he began thinking about how to give his life a purpose and decided that he would kill the Supreme Court Justice after finding the Justice’s Montgomery County address on the Internet.”
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The notice of intent to plead guilty filed by Roske’s lawyers last Tuesday relayed a summary of events which Roske admits the government would be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt if the case were to go to trial. The filing said the defendant traveled from Los Angeles to Dulles International Airport in Virginia on June 7, 2022, “with an unloaded firearm and separately packed ammunition in his checked baggage.” The next day after landing, Roske “traveled by taxi from the airport to the Montgomery County, Maryland neighborhood” where Kavanaugh lived, per the filing.
“Once there, Mr. Roske exited the taxi close to the residence and turned to walk away from the justice’s house,” the notice said. “Shortly thereafter, Mr. Roske called 911 to report that he was having suicidal and homicidal thoughts. He further stated that he was from California and that he ‘came over here to act on them’. Mr. Roske also told the 911 dispatcher that he had weapons and burglary tools in his suitcase. Once in custody, Mr. Roske told law enforcement officers that he traveled from California to Maryland with the intent to kill the Associate Justice and then himself.”
Roske’s lawyers, who are federal public defenders, had asked U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman to set a guilty plea hearing by April 7 or 8. Roske faces 30 years to life in prison under Boardman’s sentencing guidelines. His sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 3.
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