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The federal judge in Maryland handed Nicholas (now Sophie) Roske a sentence of 97 months — eight years and one month — for the 2022 plot to murder Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a decision that landed on Oct. 3, 2025 and has set off a firestorm of controversy. Judge Deborah Boardman described the crime as serious but ultimately imposed a punishment far below what prosecutors argued was required to protect the judiciary and deter political violence.
Prosecutors had urged a sentence of at least 30 years to life, citing detailed premeditation: Roske flew cross-country from California to Maryland armed with a handgun, tools, zip ties and other items and conducted internet research suggesting violent intent. Authorities say the defendant planned to break into Justice Kavanaugh’s home and had discussed targeting additional justices, facts that prosecutors argued warranted terrorism enhancements.
Yet the judge leaned heavily on mitigating factors — chiefly Roske’s decision to call 911 before entering the neighborhood, a lack of prior criminal record, and acute mental-health struggles — and even raised concerns about how incarceration might interact with the defendant’s gender transition. That calculus of mercy over punishment is exactly the sort of judicial discretion that leaves ordinary Americans scratching their heads when the crime was an attempted assassination of a sitting justice.
The Department of Justice, rightly refusing to let this stand as a precedent, announced it will appeal, with Attorney General Pamela Bondi blasting the sentence as “woefully insufficient.” Conservatives should be clear-eyed: when attempted murder motivated by political ideology receives what many will see as a slap on the wrist, it sends a dangerous message to extremists and signals that identity politics can be used as a shield in our courts.
Make no mistake — sympathy for mental illness and a moment of surrender are not excuses to undercut accountability after a plan to slaughter a Supreme Court justice was executed with real weapons and planning. This isn’t about vengeance; it’s about principle and deterrence. The judiciary must not normalize a double standard where the target of political violence is less protected than the motives of the attacker are considered fashionable.
The sentence does include lifetime supervised release and other restrictions, but those conditions cannot replace significant prison time when the intent was to end a justice’s life and reshape the Court through terror. The gap between the prosecutors’ request and the outcome is glaring, and the DOJ appeal is the only realistic route to restore any confidence that such plots will be met with justice proportionate to the threat.
Now is the time for federal prosecutors to press the appeal vigorously, for Congress to reassess protections for the judiciary, and for Republicans and conservatives to demand accountability when courtroom compassion crosses into complacency. Our legal system should treat threats to the rule of law with the seriousness they merit, not let identity politics or judicial sentimentality dilute the consequences of attempted political murder.
