The jury in the trial of White Nationalist James Alex Fields Jr. has recommended a sentence for his crime, which you probably recall was driving his car into a crowd of counter-protesters at a "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, 2017. He killed one and injured many others, in some cases leaving permanent disabilities.
The jury's recommendation was that Fields be sentenced to prison for the remainder of his life plus 419 years. I'm thinking a good lawyer ought to be able to get that cut in half. There's also $480,000 in fines, which I'm sure the killer will be able to pay easily. Maybe he can charge it on his NaziCard®. That's NaziCard® — the credit card that guarantees your finances will never be in the red or the black.
I was wondering where they got the 419 years figure. According to the A.P., it's "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." Do you think he heard that and thought, "Oh, if only I hadn't left the scene of the accident"? I also read in one article…
The jury reached its verdict after deliberating for about four hours over two days. Judges in Virginia often impose the sentence recommended by juries. Under state law, they can impose lower sentences than what the jury recommends, but cannot increase them.
I guess Fields is lucky the judge can't raise his sentence to, say, 519 afterlife years in prison. I think I'd raise it to a "billion, jillion years times infinity." He still faces trial for a "hate crime" and that could carry the death penalty. As I've mentioned before here, I don't know how I feel about the death penalty. I might be more in favor of it if we hadn't seen so many people who were sentenced to it and then later exonerated by DNA testing and other evidence.
When I've discussed the issue with folks who are fiercely for the government executing people — you know the kind who want the bailiff to administer a lethal injection just as soon as the verdict's in — that doesn't seem to matter. It's like they believe someone has to die for each capital crime and while it would be nice if it was the actual murderer, anyone who looks like they might have dunnit will do just fine.
I don't understand that thinking. But then I also don't understand why, when Fields admitted to driving the car and there was plenty of evidence that he was hot on the idea of killing anti-Nazi crusaders, it took four hours over two days to arrive at a verdict. I think mature, rational people could do that in the time it takes to make Top Ramen.
Anyway, I guess if I was forced to take a stand on the death penalty, I'd say that someone like this guy should receive the maximum punishment…and it's up for discussion as to what that should be. I don't think spending the rest of his life in prison is getting off easy, nor would his being executed make me feel any better if I'd lost someone to his criminal insanity. If I were ever properly convicted of murder, I think I'd prefer death to sitting behind bars forever, kicking myself for what I'd done.
That's what I think. I doubt I'm ever going to do anything to find out for sure.
I hope this doesn't sound like I'm being frivolous about such a horrible crime. The judicial and penal processes often sound silly and inefficient to me. The pains, both physical and emotional caused to innocent people are very real. I hope it provides some healing to those who can be healed. I just think there's a better way to do that.