GREENBELT, Maryland — The judge who will sentence Nicholas Roske, who pleaded guilty to attempting to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, asked prosecutors Friday morning about his transgender identity.
The government is asking for at least a 30-year prison sentence for Roske, whose defense attorneys revealed in a Sept. 19 filing is using female pronouns and going by the name “Sophie.”
“Let’s talk about the fact that Ms. Roske is a transgender woman,” Judge Deborah Boardman, a Biden appointee, said during the hearing. “What will happen to her as far as where she will be designated, and whether or not she will be allowed to get hormone replacement therapy if she desires it and a doctor prescribes it?”
Boardman’s question followed others about what length of sentence is needed to provide deterrence and whether prisons are properly equipped to treat mentally ill prisoners. She pointed to President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting men from being housed in women’s prisons.
“Let’s not hide the fact that there is an executive order that essentially says individuals will be assigned to a facility according to the gender of their birth,” she said. “According to the executive order, my understanding is Ms. Roske will be assigned to an all-male BOP facility.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Coreen Mao noted litigation over the executive order is ongoing.
“I don’t know the status of that litigation,” Mao said. “I can’t say with accuracy. Certainly to the extent that Your Honor is thinking about this specific consideration as a variance, our response would be that it is a prospective variance.”
Boardman told Mao the current preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s order “does not address designation or even future class members, such as Ms. Roske, why may want to receive gender-affirming care.”
In character references filed with the court, family members urged the judge to take circumstances relating to Roske’s transgender identity into account when deciding his sentence. Roske’s sister expressed concern that he would be “housed in a men’s prison with limited access to gender affirming care.”
Mao earlier argued Roske posed a “very real threat to the justice’s life and “to our constitution,” noting he spent months planning the assassination after the Supreme Court’s draft decision reversing Roe v. Wade leaked in 2022.
“Individuals who answer the call to public service, whether as judges or other public officials, make many sacrifices,” Mao said. “What they should never have to sacrifice is their personal safety and the personal safety of their families.”
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