Remorseful Charlottesville killer given life in prison

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — An avowed white supremacist who plowed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing a young woman, apologized to his victims Friday before being sentenced to life in prison on hate crime charges.

James Alex Fields Jr. of Maumee, Ohio, had pleaded guilty in March to 29 of 30 hate crimes in connection with the 2017 attack that killed Heather Heyer and injured more than two dozen others.

Prosecutors and Fields’ lawyers agreed that federal sentencing guidelines called for a life sentence. But in a sentencing memo filed in court last week, his lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski to consider a sentence of “less than life,” hoping he would take into account Fields’ troubled childhood and mental health issues.

Before the sentencing, the 22-year-old Fields, accompanied by one of his lawyers, walked to a podium in the courtroom and apologized.

“Every day I think about how things could have gone differently and how I regret my actions,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

His comments came after more than a dozen survivors and people who witnessed the attack delivered emotional testimony about the physical and psychological wounds they had received as a result of the events that day.

“You had a choice to leave Charlottesville, but you did not,” said Rosia Parker, a longtime civil rights activist in Charlottesville who said she was standing feet away from Heyer when she was struck by Fields’ car.

“You could have done anything else but what you did,” Parker said, her voice choking as she stared directly at Fields. “So, yeah, you deserve everything that you get.”

Fields appeared stoic and didn’t look at Parker or any of the victims as they spoke.