Jury selection begins in attempted assassination trial, and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier takes on State Attorney Monique Worrell on road rage case.
Day 1 of jury selection in the federal trial against the man accused of trying to assassinate President Donald Trump at a Florida golf course last fall is now over.
Ryan Routh is the man charged with plotting to kill Trump, and he is representing himself in court.
The morning session lasted about 15 minutes. Court officials asked 180 potential jurors to fill out a questionnaire, then both the defendant and the prosecution had time to review the documents. Later, the government and defense shared with the judge any concerns they had.
"It tells you information about their ties to the community, their family members in the community, sometimes tells you stuff about where they work, and the concept is to try to at the front end try to find out if there are any biases," former U.S. Attorney Roger Handberg said.
Out of the first group of 60 potential jurors, the prosecution noted concerns with more than a dozen. Routh said he did not have time to go through all of them and could not cite specific concerns.
Day 2 of jury selection will continue Tuesday with a new group of 60 more potential jurors.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Monday called on State Attorney Monique Worrell to reconsider her decision to prosecute Tina Allgeo.
Allgeo faces charges of second-degree murder resulting from a deadly road-rage incident.
Uthmeier's letter asserted that Allgeo had a right to stand her ground in the state, saying that Mihail Tzvetkov struck Allgeo's car in December 2024. Tzvetkov is then alleged to have driven away from the initial accident. Prosecutors say Allgeo followed him, ultimately hitting his car from behind.
Then, Tzvetkov is alleged to have left his car, opened the door to Allgeo's car, and punched her.
Uthmeier asserts that action gave Allgeo the right to defend herself with a legally acquired firearm.
"Florida law dictates that her actions constitute justifiable self-defense, Section 776.012(2), Florida Statutes, provides that '[a] person is justified in using or threatening to use deadly force if he or she reasonably believes that using or threatening to use such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself.' Not only that, deadly force is justified to 'prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony.'" Uthmeier wrote in his letter to Worrell.
Worrell made the decision to prosecute Allgeo earlier this year.
"She intentionally struck his vehicle after he left the initial encounter," Worrell said in March. "That is a forcible felony, which prohibits her from self-defense."
She responded to Uthmeier's letter with a prepared statement: