Routh Seeks New Trial and New Judge

The brief is not a reversal. Life in prison, plus seven years, remains the judgment until the 11th Circuit changes it. The fight that can move the case is the ruling that let the government withhold classified material the defense says it never got to test.

Ryan Routh, 60, was convicted in September 2025 on all five counts in the plot against Donald Trump at Trump's golf course in West Palm Beach in 2024. The counts include attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, and firearm offenses. Routh represented himself at the trial. In February, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon sentenced him to life in prison, followed by seven years on a firearm count.

His lawyers filed a 149-page brief in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week. The brief raises 14 issues. It asks the court to dismiss some counts, to order a new trial on the rest, and to assign any new trial to a judge other than Cannon.

The main fight is Cannon's ruling on classified discovery. She allowed the government to withhold material the defense says it had a right to see. The brief says she rested that decision on findings that the material was classified and that disclosure could cause serious damage, or exceptionally grave damage, to national security, and that she did not decide whether the material would have helped the defense. The lawyers say she should have ordered a summary or a substitute instead of letting the government withhold it.

The brief also argues that Cannon should have recused herself. It says Trump, who appointed her, was the target of the charge, and that she decided the classified-discovery question in hearings the defense did not attend. The 11th Circuit has not ruled.