the neo-Nazi activist who drove his car into a crowd protesting a white supremacist rally in Virginia last year could be sentenced as early as Tuesday to life in prison for murdering one of the people he struck.
James Alex Fields Jr plowed into the counter-protesters during the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on 12 August 2017. struck and killed Heather Heyer, 32, and injured 19 other people.
Heyer’s mother, Susan Bro, provided tearful testimony on Monday that Fields “tried to silence” her daughter but that Heyer’s message of tolerance would live on.
after listening to emotional statements from the mother of Heyer and from and the other people who were injured a jury has recommended life in prison plus 419 years for the convicted man.
The jury reached its sentencing verdict shortly before noon on Tuesday, after about four hours of deliberations over two days. Jurors also recommended 70 years for each of five malicious wounding charges, 20 for each of three malicious wounding charges, and nine years on one charge of leaving the scene of an accident.
Fields faces separate federal hate-crime charges, which carry a potential death sentence. He has pleaded not guilty in that case.
