ABA
A Minnesota man who wrote a book titled How to Kill a Federal Judge was found guilty Friday of two counts of distributing threatening communications and one count of threatening members of the judiciary.
A jury in St. Paul, Minnesota, found Robert Phillip Ivers, 73, of Minnesota guilty of mailing his 236-page how-to guide, which was “designed to teach extremists on how to plan, train, hunt, stalk and kill anyone, including judges, their family members, politicians and more”—language that prosecutors said was on a flyer that the author distributed about his book.
Court records indicate that Ivers was printing copies of his book at a library in Wayzata, Minnesota, last year, and staff alerted authorities to the manuscript’s contents.
In 2019, Ivers was convicted of plotting to kill U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright of the District of Minnesot and sentenced to 18 months in prison, according to coverage by Reuters and CBS News.
He was arrested in 2025 after making multiple threats against specific members of the judiciary. Prosecutors said Ivers informed police that he also sent copies of his book to all nine U.S. Supreme Court justices. The U.S. Marshals Service recorded 299 threats against judges in the current fiscal year.
