Avowed neo-Nazi receives another life term
Va. court’s judgment occurs two weeks after federal ruling
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Two weeks after being sentenced to life in prison by a federal judge, avowed neo-Nazi James Fields Jr. received a similar sentence Monday in a Virginia court for ramming his car into a group of counterprotesters during a whitesupremacist rally here, killing a woman and injuring 35 other people.
In ordering terms of life plus 419 years in state prison, Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Richard Moore imposed the punishment recommended in December by a jury that convicted Fields of first-degree murder and nine other charges.
“This event shook our community,” prosecutor Nina-Alice Antony told Moore in asking him to follow the jury’s sentencing recommendation. “I would even be so bold as to say it shook our nation.”
For Fields, 22, an Ohio resident with a long history of espousing racist and anti-Semitic views, Monday’s appearance in a packed courtroom was possibly his last face-to-face reckoning with the judicial system on charges related to the now-infamous “Unite the Right” rally. The sentencing came nearly two years after he accelerated his speeding Dodge Challenger into a crowd of counterprotesters during the demonstration.
Heather Heyer, 32, a local law firm employee, was killed in the vehicular attack, and numerous survivors suffered life-altering injuries, including crushed limbs and organ damage. Some have testified they will probably never be fully healthy again.
“I have never been involved in a case where so many people were severely injured by one person,” Moore said as Fields, clad in a gray-and-white-striped jail smock, sat impassively at the defendant’s table. Seven people who were injured in the attack gave victim impact statements.
In U.S. District Court in Charlottesville, Fields pleaded guilty to 29 federal hate crimes this year and was sentenced June 28 to life in prison. In Moore’s state courtroom, in addition to being found guilty of first-degree murder Dec. 7 after a two-week trial, Fields was convicted of five counts of aggravated malicious wounding, three counts of malicious wounding and one count of leaving the scene of a fatal crash.
At the Aug. 12, 2017, rally, hundreds of white supremacists chanting hateful slogans engaged in street clashes with counterprotesters for hours.
On Dec. 11, the jury of seven women and five men in the state trial recommended sentences of life for first-degree murder, 70 years for each of the five aggravated malicious wounding charges, 20 years for each of the three malicious wounding charges and nine years for leaving the scene of a fatal crash. The panel tacked on $480,000 in fines.
In federal court last month, Fields was sentenced to 29 life terms, 27 of which were made concurrent with his state sentence. It means that for judicial bookkeeping purposes, his homicidal act of vehicular rage garnered him combined state and federal sentences of 28 simultaneous life terms, followed by 419 years, followed by two more life terms.
As one of the victims, Wren Steel, said in court Monday, “I want to never be aware of him again.”