Judge Rejects Routh’s Request to Open Jury Questionnaire

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has dismissed a request from the accused in the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump, who sought to have the jury questionnaire for his impending criminal trial made public.

This refusal represents the latest courtroom setback for Ryan Routh, a 59-year-old man alleged to have hidden with a rifle at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on September 15, 2024, intending to shoot the then-Republican presidential candidate. When discussing procedures before jury selection, Routh’s attorneys contested a suggested plan to keep the jury questionnaire hidden from public view before the trial.

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Cannon outlined the two parts that would take place in a status conference regarding jury selection procedures. Part one, she said, would be public and “unrestricted” regarding the general logistics of jury selection, while part two would “proceed in sealed session and focus on a substantive discussion of the proposed juror questionnaire itself.”

It is this juror questionnaire that Routh’s legal team wanted unsealed, but Cannon, a Trump appointee who also presided over and later dismissed his Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, denied this request and additionally found that making part two of the conference publicly available would carry “significant risk.”

“The Court finds, at this juncture, that sealing Part II of the status conference is a necessary and sufficiently tailored means of avoiding the significant risk of tainting the jury pool from pre-trial dissemination of substantive questions proposed for inclusion in a jury questionnaire,” Cannon wrote in her Tuesday order.

“In reaching this determination, the Court has balanced Defendant’s and the public’s strong interest in openness of judicial proceedings against the critical need to ensure a fair, uncontaminated, and impartial jury pool in this case of high public interest,” the Southern District of Florida judge added.

The status conference is taking place on Wednesday in Fort Pierce, Florida. In a separate order, as Cannon noted, Routh’s request to attend virtually was denied. His trial on five charges, including attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, and assault of a federal officer, is set to begin on Sept. 8.