James Alex Fields Jr., 22, is the infamous white supremacist who drove his car through a crowd of people protesting a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia two years ago, killing a young woman and injuring dozens.
Lawyers for the staunch anti-Semite said, in a sentencing memo submitted in court documents on Friday, that Fields should not spend his entire life in prison because of his age, a traumatic childhood and a history of mental illness. Being raised by a paraplegic single mother and growing up knowing that his Jewish grandfather had murdered his grandmother before committing suicide is being used as an excuse.
But Fields has blatantly shown no signs of remorse. There are years of documented racist and anti-Semitic behavior by Fields, which they said included keeping a picture of Adolf Hitler on his bedside table. He was recorded on a jail phone call making disgusting remarks about the victim’s mother as recently as last month.
His lawyers tried to say that for the racist, who has not shown remorse for the murder of peace activist Heather Heyer, “retribution has its limits.”
Fields is set to be sentenced on June 28 and already pleaded guilty to the obvious — federal hate crime charges and intentionally plowing his speeding car into a crowd of peaceful anti-racism protesters. He is also facing state charges in Virginia of first-degree murder.
Fields’ lawyers are using the same tactic as President Donald Trump: downplaying. Trump sparked national outrage when he blamed the violence at the rally on “both sides” and refused to condemn white supremacy.
