Minnesota man pleads guilty to lawmaker shootings after death penalty removed

WASHINGTON – A Minnesota man pleaded guilty on June 11 to murdering a state lawmaker and her husband and seriously wounding two other people after federal prosecutors dropped the death penalty.

Vance Boelter, 58, disguised himself as a police officer during the June 14, 2025 shooting at the homes of two Democratic members of the Minnesota state legislature.

State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed in what the authorities said was a politically motivated attack.

State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were seriously wounded.

Boelter pleaded guilty to six federal charges, including two counts of murder by firearm, in a district court in Minneapolis on June 11 after prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty.

He faces a sentence of life in prison. Boelter also faces state charges in connection with the shooting but Minnesota does not have the death penalty.

The attacks renewed fears of growing political violence in America.

President Donald Trump has been the target of multiple assassination attempts and a prominent right-wing political activist, Charlie Kirk, was gunned down in September 2025 at a Utah university campus.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s home was set on fire in 2025 and an assailant attacked the husband of then-US House speaker Nancy Pelosi with a hammer in 2022.

Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and has called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

In April, the Trump Justice Department said it was seeking to expand the use of the death penalty in federal capital cases and add the firing squad, electrocution and nitrogen gas to lethal injection as methods of execution.

The death penalty is normally carried out at the state level in the United States but the federal government can also seek execution for a limited set of crimes. AFP