By Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A California man who showed up armed with a handgun near U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland home in 2022 plans to plead guilty to attempted assassination, his lawyers said on Wednesday in a letter to a federal judge.
Lawyers for the defendant, Nicholas Roske, said he was prepared to plead guilty to the sole charge he faced, attempted assassination of a Supreme Court justice. He requested a hearing next week in Maryland federal court.
Roske had been scheduled to face trial beginning in June. A Supreme Court spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Roske told law enforcement officers after his arrest on June 7, 2022, that he traveled from his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Simi Valley to Maryland with the intent to kill Kavanaugh, a member of the court’s conservative majority, and then himself, according to the letter.
Authorities said at the time that Roske was dismayed at expected Supreme Court opinions ending the national right to abortion and rolling back gun regulations. The incident happened about a month after a leaked draft opinion indicated the court was poised to overturn its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
The court issued its final ruling weeks after Roske’s arrest. Abortion-rights supporters held protests outside the homes of Kavanaugh and other Supreme Court justices in the weeks leading up the decision.
Kavanaugh, a conservative jurist appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term, has served on the court since 2018.
Roske is prepared to admit that after arriving near Kavanaugh’s home he called 911 to report “that he was having suicidal and homicidal thoughts” and that he traveled from California to Maryland “to act on them,” according to his lawyers.
He faces a maximum of life in prison on the attempted assassination charge.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward in Washington; Additional reporting by John Kruzel in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Matthew Lewis)
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