Man who tried to kill Brett Kavanaugh says he wanted to 'make the world a better place'
A man arrested for attempting to murder U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh over the judge's opposition to abortion has stated that he wanted to "make the world a better place."
Nicholas Roske was arrested in early June 2022 outside of Kavanaugh's Maryland home after making threats against the justice over his likely involvement in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the controversial 1973 decision that labeled abortion a constitutional right.
Roske is scheduled to go to trial in June on one count of attempting to assassinate a Supreme Court justice, reported The Hill.
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A transcript of comments he made to a special agent was released last week.
"My plan was to kill Mr. Kavanaugh and then myself," Roske told the agent after he was arrested and taken to a police station, adding, "I've been suicidal for a long time."
Roske cited the May 2022 leaked draft opinion for the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that was released by Politico, which showed that the high court was going to overturn Roe as motivating his actions.
"When I saw that … leaked draft, it made me upset and then it made me want to — I don't know. I was under the — I was under the delusion that I could make the world a better place by killing him," said Roske, according to the transcript.
The transcript was released as part of a motion Roske filed arguing that his statements were inadmissible and that he had been unconstitutionally searched when arrested.
"While federal agents advised Mr. Roske of his rights and obtained his signature on a rights-waiver form, this waiver was not made voluntarily and intelligently," stated the motion, as quoted by The Washington Times.
"At the time, Mr. Roske was acutely suicidal, visibly exhausted, and had repeatedly expressed his need for psychiatric care."
Weeks before the Supreme Court released its final opinion for Dobbs ruling abortion is not a constitutional right, Roske of Simi Valley, California, was arrested near Kavanaugh's home in Chevy Chase with multiple weapons on his person. He later told police that he wanted to kill Kavanaugh over his plans to overturn Roe.
The incident was one of many threats and acts of violence against pro-life individuals, advocacy groups, charities and churches in 2022 due to the overturning of Roe.
In October 2022, Justice Samuel Alito said at an event hosted by the conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation that the draft leak made members of the high court "targets for assassination."
"The leak also made those of us who were thought to be in the majority in support of overruling Roe and [Planned Parenthood v. Casey] targets for assassination, because it gave people a rational reason to think they could prevent that from happening by killing one of us," said Alito.
Alito told the Heritage crowd that everyone, from the justices to their staff, just "want things to get back to normal the way they were before all this last term."
