A federal court in the United States sentenced Ryan Routh, the left-wing Democratic activist who planned an assassination attempt against Donald Trump while the then-presidential candidate was at a golf course in Florida in the middle of the election campaign, to life imprisonment this Wednesday.
The sentence was handed down by Judge Aileen Cannon in the federal court in Fort Pierce, the same building where, months earlier, the defendant was involved in an incident when he attempted to self-harm after the verdict against him was announced.
In addition to life in prison, Routh received an additional sentence of seven years for one of the charges related to the use of firearms. The prosecution had requested a life sentence without the possibility of parole, considering that the defendant never expressed remorse or offered apologies for his actions.
The defense, by contrast, requested a sentence of twenty-seven years, arguing that Routh is close to turning sixty years old and that a shorter sentence would eventually allow him to regain his freedom before dying in prison.
The charges against Routh
The jury found Routh guilty of multiple offenses, including the attempted murder of a presidential candidate, the use of a firearm in the commission of a violent crime, the assault of a federal agent, the illegal possession of a firearm as a repeat offender, and the use of a rifle with an altered serial number.
