Virginia rally death brings life sentence
Neo-Nazi was convicted of killing woman in Charlottesville crowd
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – James Alex Fields Jr., a neo-Nazi who rammed his car into counterprotesters of a “Unite the Right” rally in 2017, killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of others, was sentenced in state court Monday to life in prison plus 419 years.
Judge Richard E. Moore upheld a Virginia jury’s recommended sentence from December.
The death penalty was off the table under the terms of a plea deal reached in March on his conviction for federal hate crimes.
Fields, 22, was convicted of the murder of Heather Heyer in state court in December.
In June, he was sentenced in federal court to life in prison without the possibility of release for hate crimes.
Hundreds of counterprotesters turned out in 2017 to face an assortment of alt-right and far-right protesters, who had descended upon the Virginia college town to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Fields traveled from his hometown of Maumee, Ohio, specifically to attend the rally.
At the time of the attack, President Donald Trump blamed the violence at the rally on both sides, sparking further controversy and stirring racial tensions.
During Fields’ federal sentencing hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Urbanski said life was the only appropriate sentence for Fields: “Protection of the public requires a life sentence without release.”
The avowed white supremacist was “like a kid at Disney World” during a high school trip to a German concentration camp, federal prosecutors said.
FBI Special Agent Wade Douthit read grand jury testimony from one of Fields’ high school classmates who said he appeared happy when touring the Dachau camp and remarked, “This is where the magic happened.”
Evidence showed Fields’ actions on the day he killed Heyer were premeditated, Urbanski said at the federal sentencing.