The man who killed a female counterprotester when he rammed his car into a crowd at a 2017 Charlottesville rally will not be getting out of prison in his lifetime.
Based on a new sentencing issued Monday, James Alex Fields was sentenced to many lifetimes in prison.
Fields will spend life plus 419 years in prison for the state charges connected to his actions at the Aug. 12, 2017, rally.
The state sentencing is in addition to a life sentence he was given in connection to the federal charges he faced for the same incident.
The jury recommendation was announced in December after Fields was found guilty of first-degree murder, five counts of aggravated malicious wounding and three counts of malicious wounding in the incident.
The Associated Press reported that the judge could have issued a sentence that was less than the jury’s recommendation.
“Mr. Fields, you had choices. We all have choices,” Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Richard Moore said, according to the AP. “You made the wrong ones and you caused great harm. … You caused harm around the globe when people saw what you did.”
Susan Bro, the mother of counterprotester Heather Heyer, spoke after the federal sentencing in June, apologizing “to the tax payers, for saddling you with this burden” by having Fields spend life in prison, “but it was the judge’s call.”
