A Virginia jury has convicted James Alex Fields Jr of first-degree murder in the death of Heather Heyer at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.

The jury deliberated for less than a day before convicting on Friday the 21-year-old of murder and several other charges stemming from the deadly confrontation that occurred after police had declared an unlawful assembly and cleared a park of white supremacists gathered for the "Unite the Right" rally.

During the incident, Fields slammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heyer and injuring dozens more.

Earlier in the day, Fields was photographed marching with Vanguard America, a neo-Nazi group, during the rally. Throughout the day, rally participants clashed with community members, anti-racists and anti-fascists across the city.

Unite the Right, called to oppose Charlottesville's decision to remove a Confederate statue, was the largest white nationalist rally in the United States in recent times.

The rally brought out thousands of supporters of the alt-right, a loosely-knit coalition of white supremacists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis.

Fields's defence team did not contest that he was behind the wheel of the grey Dodge Challenger when it struck activists who had descended upon the Virginia city to counter a "Unite the Right" rally. But they argued their client was "scared for his life".

The prosecution called multiple witnesses and victims who recounted in some cases what turned out to be life-altering injuries.



The witnesses testified the event had become peaceful, "joyful" and "celebratory" after city authorities ordered the far right to disperse - countering the defence's narrative of a hostile, frightening atmosphere at the time of the attack.



Earlier in the week, they presented jurors an SMS message Fields sent to his mother before departing for the rally after she had asked him to be careful.



"We're not the one who need to be careful" he replied, alongside a photo of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, whom he has long admired.

Federal charges

Separately, Fields also faces dozens of federal charges, including hate crimes, which could result in the death penalty.

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In the wake of the deadly Charlottesville protest, several articles investigating Fields's history found a lengthy social media trail of neo-Nazi content and racist posts.

Following the rally, far-right participants from across the country faced legal backlash, with a slew of civil suits against the organisers.

Heyer was among 18 people killed by white supremacists in the US last year, according to the Anti-Defamation League. White nationalist, neo-Nazi and far-right groups that took to the streets in Charlottesville saw permits for a spate of subsequent public events pulled or denied, while hosting services, social media outlets and tech companies cracked down on far-right individuals and groups.

Earlier this month, the FBI released its annual hate crimes report for 2017. It says, hate crimes grew for the third consecutive year, increasing by 17 percent.</s>Just over a year after he plowed his vehicle into a crowd protesting a white nationalist rally, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer, James Alex Fields Jr. was convicted Friday of first-degree murder and other felonies – and now faces the possibility of life in prison.

A jury needed a little more than seven hours to convict Fields, of Maumee, Ohio, in the killing of Heyer during a “Unite the Right” rally in Virginia on Aug. 12, 2017.

He was also found guilty of five counts of aggravated malicious wounding, three counts of malicious wounding and a count of leaving the scene of an accident. Fields faces life in prison.

During closing arguments Thursday, prosecutor Nina-Alice Antony portrayed Fields as a hateful young man who idled his vehicle for more than a minute before backing up and then speeding into the crowd, killing Heyer and injuring dozens of other people.

Video from a Virginia State Police helicopter captured the incident, showing a grey muscle car as it rammed the group and then drove away.

Antony also referenced a text message sent by Fields the day before the rally after his mother told him to be careful.

In the text, accompanied by a picture of Adolf Hitler, Fields wrote: “we’re not the one (sic) who need to be careful.”

Antony also repeatedly reminded jurors about a meme Fields posted on Instagram three months before the crash. The image showed a crowd, identified as “protesters,” being rammed by a car, and depicted bodies being tossed in the air.

"What we have is a man who had a decision, and he decides to turn his Instagram post into reality," she said.

Defense attorney Denise Lunsford urged the jury to consider the chaos of the day, including the use of tear gas and a series of street fights between white nationalists, Antifa activists and counter-protesters.

Lunsford said Fields only drove into the crowd out of fear after finding himself alone and unprotected.

“Look at the circumstances as they appeared to him,” Lunsford said. “He says he felt he was in danger, there were people coming at him.”

On Thursday, she urged the jury to find Fields guilty of “no more than” the lesser charges of manslaughter in Heyer’s death and unlawful wounding for the injuries to others.

The “Unite the Right” rally was organized to protest plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. But white nationalists made up the bulk of the protesters who descended on Charlottesville, leading counter-demonstrators and left-leaning activists to join the fray.</s>CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — A man who drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally in Virginia was convicted Friday of first-degree murder for killing a woman in an attack that inflamed long-simmering racial and political tensions across the country.

A state jury rejected arguments that James Alex Fields Jr. acted in self-defense during a "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, 2017. Jurors also convicted Fields of eight other charges, including aggravated malicious wounding and hit and run.

Fields, 21, drove to Virginia from his home in Maumee, Ohio, to support the white nationalists. As a large group of counterprotesters marched through Charlottesville singing and laughing, he stopped his car, backed up, then sped into the crowd, according to testimony from witnesses and video surveillance shown to jurors.

Prosecutors told the jury that Fields was angry after witnessing violent clashes between the two sides earlier in the day. The violence prompted police to shut down the rally before it even officially began.

Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal and civil rights activist, was killed, and nearly three dozen others were injured. The trial featured emotional testimony from survivors who described devastating injuries and long, complicated recoveries.

The far-right rally had been organized in part to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Hundreds of Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Nazis and other white nationalists — emboldened by the election of President Donald Trump — streamed into the college town for one of the largest gatherings of white supremacists in a decade. Some dressed in battle gear.

Afterward, Trump inflamed tensions even further when he said "both sides" were to blame, a comment some saw as a refusal to condemn racism.

Read more: Here's what we know about James Fields, the 20-year-old with 'deeply-held, radical' beliefs about race accused of mowing down protesters in Charlottesville

According to one of his former teachers, Fields was known in high school for being fascinated with Nazism and idolizing Adolf Hitler. Jurors were shown a text message he sent to his mother days before the rally that included an image of the notorious German dictator. When his mother pleaded with him to be careful, he replied: "we're not the one (sic) who need to be careful."

During one of two recorded phone calls Fields made to his mother from jail in the months after he was arrested, he told her he had been mobbed "by a violent group of terrorists" at the rally. In another, Fields referred to the mother of the woman who was killed as a "communist" and "one of those anti-white supremacists."

Prosecutors also showed jurors a meme Fields posted on Instagram three months before the rally in which bodies are shown being thrown into the air after a car hits a crowd of people identified as protesters. He posted the meme publicly to his Instagram page and sent a similar image as a private message to a friend in May 2017.

But Fields' lawyers told the jury that he drove into the crowd on the day of the rally because he feared for his life and was "scared to death" by earlier violence he had witnessed. A video of Fields being interrogated after the crash showed him sobbing and hyperventilating after he was told a woman had died and others were seriously injured.

The jury will reconvene Monday to determine a sentence. Under the law, jurors can recommend from 20 years to life in prison.

Fields is eligible for the death penalty if convicted of separate federal hate crime charges. No trial has been scheduled yet.</s>Neo-Nazi James Alex Fields Jr. was found guilty on 10 charges including first-degree murder Friday after plowing his car into protesters during the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year, killing Heather Heyer.

Fields ― a 21-year-old extremist associated with the hate group Vanguard America ― faced charges of first-degree murder and other felonies over the attack, in which he intentionally sped into protesters after the “Unite the Right” rally on Aug. 12, killing one and injuring dozens more. He also faces 30 charges in a separate federal case over the same attack.

“That is the face of anger, of hatred. It’s the face of malice,” said Nina-Alice Antony, assistant commonwealth’s attorney, according to WTOP.

During the trial, prosecutors provided evidence that Fields showed little remorse for the murder in a call he made to his mother in December 2017. He referred to Heyer as “that one girl who died, or whatever” and said her death “doesn’t fucking matter,” according to BuzzFeed.

Days prior to the deadly rally, he sent a photo of Adolf Hitler to his mother along with the text, “We’re not the one [sic] who need to be careful.”

Videos from several angles and photos from the Charlottesville attack show Fields flying down Fourth Street in his car, plowing into protesters, then backing up and hitting more.

Fields’ defense asked the court to find him guilty of lesser charges of unlawful wounding and involuntary manslaughter, arguing that he was immature at the time of the attack and that he drove into protesters out of fear. Antony called the defense an excuse, noting that Fields could have backed away from protesters.

Fields was also found guilty of eight counts of malicious wounding of various degrees, and a count of failing to stop at the scene of an accident. His sentencing hearing begins Monday, according to BuzzFeed’s Blake Montgomery.</s>Charlottesville: A man who drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally in Virginia has been convicted of first-degree murder for killing a woman in an attack that inflamed long-simmering racial and political tensions across the country.

A state jury rejected arguments that James Alex Fields Jr. acted in self-defence during the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017.

Jurors also convicted Fields of eight other charges, including aggravated malicious wounding and hit and run.

Fields, 21, drove to Virginia from his home in Maumee, Ohio, to support the white nationalists.</s>Man who drove car into counterprotesters at white nationalist rally in Virginia convicted of first-degree murder

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Man who drove car into counterprotesters at white nationalist rally in Virginia convicted of first-degree murder.</s>CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Man who drove car into counterprotesters at white nationalist rally in Virginia convicted of first-degree murder.</s>A neo-Nazi who drove his car into a group of protesters, killing one, during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was found guilty of murder on Friday.

James Alex Fields, 21, has been convicted of killing activist Heather Heyer when he plowed his Dodge Challenger into her and others during the “Unite the Right” rally in 2017.

Fields is an avowed supporter of neo-Nazi beliefs.

A jury found that Fields acted with premeditation on Aug. 12, 2017, when he backed up his car before barreling down a narrow street crowded with counterprotesters.

He slammed his car into the group, killing the 32-year-old Heyer and injuring 35 others.

The deadly attack came hours after a group of white supremacists, some wearing red “Make America Great Again” hats, descended on the University of Virginia campus holding tiki torches and shouting “Jews will not replace us.”

In response to the violence, President Trump said there was “blame on both sides.”</s>FILE PHOTO: Rescue workers assist people who were injured when a car drove through a group of counter protesters at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S., August 12, 2017. REUTERS/Justin Ide/File Photo

Charlottesville, Va., (Reuters) - A jury in Charlottesville, Virginia, will begin deliberations on Friday in the murder trial of a man who rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protestors at a far right rally last year, killing one activist.

Hundreds of white nationalists, white supremacists and neo-Nazis gathered in Charlottesville in August 2017 to demonstrate against a plan to remove a statue of a Confederate general. The night before the car-ramming, they staged a torch-lit march, chanting racist and anti-Semitic slogans.

During his two-week trial, prosecutors said James Fields, 21, was motivated by hatred toward the counter-demonstrators, while the defense argued that he was fearfully reacting to a violent situation after supporters and counter demonstrators fought pitched battles using rocks and pepper spray.

Defense attorneys never disputed that Fields was behind the wheel of the Dodge Charger that sent bodies flying when it crashed into a crowd on Aug. 12, 2017, killing counterprotester Heather Heyer, 32 and injuring 19 others.

Instead, they suggested he was intimidated by a hostile crowd and acted to protect himself.

U.S. President Donald Trump was strongly condemned from Democrats and Republicans alike for saying afterward that "both sides" were to blame for the violence.

Urging jurors to find Fields guilty of murder and nine other charges, prosecutor Nina-Alice Antony said in closing arguments Thursday that Fields had had no reason to be afraid but that he had come to the rally from Ohio intending to harm others.

But defense attorney Denise Lunsford countered that Fields' behavior was defensive in nature, telling jurors: "James' actions were impacted by everything else that was going on.”

Asking the jury to find her client not guilty of all charges, Lunsford said when he was arrested, Fields told police, "I’m sorry I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I thought they were attacking me."

Fields, who did not take the stand to defend himself, could face life in prison if convicted of murder.</s>CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — After deliberating for more than seven hours on Friday, a Charlottesville jury convicted James Fields Jr. of first-degree murder, finding that the Ohio man intentionally drove his car into a crowd of protesters at a white nationalist rally last year, killing one woman and injuring nearly 40 others.

The jury, which heard testimony in a case in which hate and racism were as much on trial as Mr. Fields, also found the 21-year-old guilty of five counts of aggravated malicious wounding, three counts of malicious wounding and one count of leaving the scene of a crime. He faces up to life in prison for the death of Heather Heyer, 32, and for the aggravated woundings, and up to 20 years for the other offenses.

Friday’s verdict provides some closure in a case that cast a national spotlight on Charlottesville, the scene chosen by racists and anti-Semites to rally for their cause, near a Confederate monument that some city leaders were trying to remove. The August 2017 Unite the Right rally was marked by violent clashes between counterprotesters and white nationalists, some of whom were convicted earlier this year.

[Read: Year After White Nationalist Rally, Charlottesville Is in Tug of War Over Its Soul]

The nine-day trial featured days of emotional testimony from victims who were seriously injured in the crash, including a man who pushed his girlfriend out of the way, bearing the brunt of the impact himself, and a single mother who suffered two broken legs and a broken back. Many of the victims returned to the courtroom day after day to listen to other witnesses, and jurors saw them hugging and comforting one another.
A jury finds James Alex Fields guilty of the murder, in the first degree, of Heather Heyer at a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.