Man charged with plotting to kill Kavanaugh asks judge to exclude evidence against him

A California man accused of trying to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his home in 2022 described himself as “actively suicidal” and said he was trying “do something positive before I die” by trying to kill the justice, according to court filings Friday.

The defendant, Nicholas Roske, also told investigators that he had been partially motivated by the disclosure of a draft opinion showing that the Supreme Court, with Kavanaugh in the majority, was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Defense lawyers for Roske released a bevy of new details about his arrest and interrogation as they urged a judge to block prosecutors from introducing much of the key evidence in the case. That evidence includes Roske’s statements to police and the FBI, as well as the fact that he carried two bags to Kavanaugh’s Maryland home containing a Glock pistol, a knife, zip-ties and pepper spray.

Roske’s trial is scheduled to begin June 9.

The legal motions submitted to U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte argue that police lacked a warrant to search Roske’s belongings after they arrested him in the early morning hours of June 8, 2022. They also contend that Roske wasn’t given Miranda warnings before being questioned at the scene and that his statements weren’t voluntary because he was suffering from a mental health crisis while being interrogated at a police station in Bethesda.

The filings by Roske’s attorneys are also the first fresh glimpse into a case that has languished for more than two years. They detail Roske’s stated motives for targeting Kavanaugh and how the defendant crafted what prosecutors contend was his plan to kill the justice.

During several hours of interrogation following his arrest, Roske was sometimes chillingly blunt about his intentions, while also speaking candidly about his history of mental illness.

“My plan was to kill Mr. Kavanaugh and then myself,” Roske told FBI agents, according to a transcript attached to one of the defense motions.

Roske told investigators he began planning the attack “about a month” in advance. That’s roughly when POLITICO reported that a draft majority opinion indicated that the Supreme Court was poised to end the federal constitutional right to abortion.

“I’ve been suicidal for a long time, and when I saw … the leaked draft, it made me upset and then it made me want to — I don’t know. … I was under the delusion that I could make the world a better place by killing him,” Roske said. In the transcripts, Roske was vague with investigators about why the court’s then-forthcoming abortion decision troubled him, saying simply that his concerns came “from a civil rights perspective.”

Roske also said he was disturbed by the recent trend in Supreme Court rulings toward an increasingly broad interpretation of gun rights. His anger over that issue grew in the wake of high-profile mass shootings that took place in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, in the weeks before Roske bought the Glock handgun from a gun store in California, flew to Dulles Airport and took a taxi to Kavanaugh’s home in the middle of the night.

“Another motivating factor was I heard that the current court was thinking about loosening gun restrictions and so, the one-two punch of Buffalo and then (indiscernible) and then hearing that this person that I was already upset with was planning on making it easier for people to do stuff like that,” Roske told a Montgomery County, Maryland, detective.

Prosecutors had previously suggested in court documents that Roske had been motivated by the draft abortion decision and the expansion of gun rights.

Roske said he found the name of Kavanaugh’s Maryland neighborhood on Wikipedia and got a more precise address by looking at news coverage of abortion-rights protests at Kavanaugh’s home following publication of the draft opinion.

“There was an article that had a picture of the family’s house and [I] looked at the house number,” he told FBI agents. “So I just came out here.”

Roske told investigators he got out of a taxi with his luggage and approached the lawn of Kavanaugh’s home in the early morning of June 8, 2022, but noticed two men sitting on the lawn. He then walked to a street behind the justice’s house and texted his sister that he loved her. She interpreted the message as a sign of distress and called him, convincing him to call 911 instead of carrying out his plan. Police responded and arrested Roske without incident.

In the interrogation, Roske also told investigators that he had been involuntarily committed for mental health treatment on three occasions. Some details of his diagnosis were redacted from the court filings made public Friday.

Roske pleaded not guilty in 2022 to a one-count federal indictment charging him with attempted assassination of a Supreme Court justice, which carries a potential sentence of up to life in prison. Roske has been in custody since his arrest two-and-a-half years ago and has not sought pretrial release.

Federal prosecutors and Roske’s defense team spent many months negotiating a potential plea deal, but prosecutors indicated last summer that the two sides were unable to agree on terms of such an arrangement.

Messitte, a Greenbelt, Maryland-based appointee of President Bill Clinton, is scheduled to hear arguments on the defense motions on April 8.

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