Man Who Had Gun And Knife Will Plead Guilty To Trying To Assassinate Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh

A California man will plead guilty to trying to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his home in a suburb of Washington, D.C, nearly three years ago, the defendant's attorneys said in a court filing on Wednesday.

Nicholas John Roske, of Simi Valley, California, was arrested near Kavanaugh's home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, in June 2022. Roske was armed with a gun and a knife, was carrying zip ties and was dressed in black when he arrived in the neighborhood by taxi just after 1 a.m., federal authorities said.

Roske, who was 26 when he was arrested, intends to plead guilty to attempting to murder a justice of the United States without reaching a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, according to his lawyers. The charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Roske's attorneys asked a judge in Greenbelt, Maryland, to schedule a hearing next Monday or Tuesday for him to enter a guilty plea. They say prosecutors have consented to their request.

After his arrest, Roske told a police detective that he was upset by a leaked draft opinion suggesting the Supreme Court intended to overrule Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion case, according to an FBI agent's affidavit . Killing one jurist could change the decisions of the nine-member court "for decades to come," authorities said that Roske wrote, adding, "I am shooting for three."