Excerpt: "A man sentenced to life in prison on federal hate crime charges for deliberately driving his car into anti-racism protesters during a white nationalist rally in Virginia is set to face a state judge who could add another life sentence, plus 419 years."
Mourners embrace outside the building where Heather Heyer was killed by a car driven by a white supremacist, in Charlottesville, Virginia. (photo: Logan Cyrus/AFP/Getty Images)
Charlottesville White Supremacist Faces Another Life Sentence for Car Attack
15 July 19
James Alex Fields Jr sentenced for killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens during the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in 2017
man convicted of federal hate crime charges for deliberately slamming his car into a crowd of anti-racism protesters during a white nationalist rally in Virginia has been sentenced to life in prison on state charges.
James Alex Fields Jr, 22, was sentenced on Monday to life plus 419 years for killing one person and injuring dozens during the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville on 12 August 2017.
Judge Richard Moore formally imposed the sentence recommended by a Virginia jury that convicted Fields in December.
“Mr. Fields, you had choices. We all have choices,” Moore said. “You made the wrong ones and you caused great harm ... You caused harm around the globe when people saw what you did.”
Fields, of Maumee, Ohio, was sentenced last month to life in prison on 29 federal hate crime charges. The state sentence is mainly symbolic since he has already received a life sentence on federal charges.
“For his purposes, he has one life to give, so this is a largely academic exercise,” said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University.
The car attack happened during a rally of hundreds of white nationalists who had gathered in Charlottesville to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E Lee.
Fields, an avowed white supremacist who kept a photo of Adolf Hitler on his bedside table, drove from his home in Maumee, Ohio, to attend the rally.
The event also drew counter-protesters. Violent skirmishes between the two sides prompted police to declare an unlawful assembly and to order the groups to disband before the rally could begin.
Later that day, Fields plowed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer, 32, and injuring more than two dozen others.
The event stirred racial tensions around the country. Donald Trump sparked controversy when he blamed the violence at the rally on “both sides”, a statement that critics saw as a refusal to condemn racism.
During Fields’ state trial, his attorneys focused on his history of mental illness and traumatic childhood.
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