James Fields Jr. Sentenced to Death in Prison by Virginia Court: NPR

The neo-Nazi avowed James Fields Jr. was sentenced to a second life sentence for the murder of a woman and scores of wounded when he struck his car in a group of people protesting against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

On Monday, Judge Richard Moore of the Charlottesville Circuit sentenced Fields to life imprisonment plus 419 years and a fine of $ 480,000, in accordance with the jury's recommendation.

Last month, a federal judge sentenced the 22-year-old to life in prison with no possibility of parole. Fields pleaded guilty to 29 federal hate crimes in a plea agreement in which prosecutors dropped a charge that could have resulted in the death penalty.

People had collected in the heat in front of the Virginia courthouse Monday, pending sentencing. A reporter said Arrival of the fields was hidden from the public view.

After the announcement of the conviction, Joseph Platania, Commonwealth Commonwealth Attorney, told NPR: "Although this process can not lead to any conclusion, we hope that today's sentence will be the first step forward for some. "

A jury in Charlottesville sentenced Fields in December on charges of first degree murder in the murder of counter-Protestant Heather Heyer; the jury also found guilty of several counts of aggravated aggravated wounds, malicious wounds and abandonment of the place of the accident.

Prosecutors used X-rays, photos, video recordings and social media posts to claim that Fields had acted deliberately, with hatred in the heart. ("I have the impression that the courts will see my daughter die again, again and again," said Heyer's mother, Susan Bro, at the time of the trial.)

A court-appointed Fields attorney tried unsuccessfully to move the lawsuit because of the publicity and impact on Charlottesville residents.

Fields' lawyers had claimed that he had acted in self-defense. They focused on his history of mental illness and, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, a psychologist testified that Fields was diagnosed as a child with bipolar disorder and schizoid personality disorder.

At his federal trial, Fields' lawyers described a family history of bipolar disorder. They stated that his grandfather had killed his grandmother before killing himself, that his father had died in a car accident before his birth and that his mother was a paraplegic who had "raised him". a wheelchair, "according to court records. They also claimed that he had never attended a political rally before the Unite the Right rally in 2017.

Heyer was a 32-year-old paralegal who died on August 12, 2017 after Fields took his Dodge Challenger out of the crowd protesting against the rally of white nationalists and white supremacists this weekend against Confederate statue of Charlottesville General Robert E. Lee.

The street where Heyer was killed is now filled with flowers and colorful chalk messages on brick buildings. "The informal memorial is expected to stay and the street has been honorifically named after Heather Heyer," NPR spokesman Brian Wheeler told the city of Charlottesville on Monday.