A federal jury in St. Paul, Minnesota, convicted Robert Phillip Ivers on Friday for writing and distributing a 236-page manuscript that threatened members of the federal judiciary. The 73-year-old was found guilty on three counts, including mailing threatening communications and threatening to murder a federal judge.
The case followed a previous 2019 conviction in which Ivers was found guilty of threatening to kill U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison for that offense by U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt, who was one of the individuals named in the new manuscript. Ivers was arrested in September 2025 after library staff in Wayzata, Minnesota, reported seeing him print the document.
Prosecutors stated the manuscript, titled "How to Kill a Federal Judge," was described by Ivers in a flyer as a guide for extremists to "hunt, stalk and kill" judges, politicians, and their families. During a search of the defendant's car, authorities recovered 20 spiral-bound copies of the document. Evidence presented during the trial indicated Ivers mailed the manuscript to a lawyer who had testified against him and claimed to have sent copies to both Judge Pratt and Judge Wright, as well as all nine U.S. Supreme Court justices.
For the general public and legal practitioners, the case demonstrates the federal government's threshold for prosecuting speech that crosses into specific threats of violence. While Ivers’ defense initially faced a charge of threatening a U.S. Supreme Court justice, prosecutors dropped that specific count after a dispute regarding which justice—Chief Justice John Roberts or Justice Neil Gorsuch—was the intended target. The conviction on the remaining counts establishes a legal precedent regarding the distribution of instructional material that names specific judicial officers as targets for harm.
The immediate impact for Ivers is a return to the federal prison system, though a specific sentencing date and the length of his upcoming term were not reported. This follows his arrest in September 2025 and the conclusion of the trial in August 2026. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota led the prosecution, while Ivers was represented by court-appointed counsel. The case highlights a continuing trend of heightened security measures for federal courtrooms and personnel across the United States.