Law James Fields found guilty of all charges

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Well, shit. I wasn't optimistic, but at least I predicted it could've gotten pleaded down to manslaughter.

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
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The Ineffective Assistance of Counsel appeal basically writes itself based upon his lawyer's failure 1) to get the case removed to a neutral venue and 2) not block admission of all the extremely prejudicial evidence (like texting a picture of hitler to his mother).
 
Political motivations aside, the jury did make the correct decision here. I don't think the circumstance of Heather being a fat bitch changes that there's enough evidence to suggest murder was his intent.

Stab You in the Back said:
The Ineffective Assistance of Counsel appeal basically writes itself based upon his lawyer's failure 1) to get the case removed to a neutral venue and 2) not block admission of all the extremely prejudicial evidence (like texting a picture of hitler to his mother).
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Yeah the defense did a horrible job. He would have been better off being represented by Mike Enoch.
 
Fields is an unsympathetic doofus, Heyer was a fat bitch who would have inevitably died from the beetus and was never going to amount to anything, and Fields got really shitty legal counsel. This thing was a train wreck from start to finish.
 
Deven said:
There were some early doubts on whether he had planned this or if there was an iota of justification due to the crowd being intimidating and seemingly hostile. But this moron really buried himself with this:

"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."

:story:
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The text to his mother was absolutely stupid from all the obviously misplaced overconfidence, and indeed, his message's ominous tone really hurt his case, although it still doesn't change the fact we're entering an age where even having Hitler pics on your phone as a joke could be entered as evidence. As much in poor taste the Instagram post was made, I refuse to believe that meme showed intent because the meme was just that; a meme and a joke. Nothing more, nothing less. The smartest thing to do if you're going to do edgy humor is be anonymous, but in Fields case, it still doesn't take away from the reality that prosecution can cite old shitposts derived from memes made years ago in response to left-wing demonstrators blocking major thoroughfares as evidence. There's a world of difference between jokes and actually boasting about chasing someone down with a rifle.

Naturally, the guys at TRS aren't happy about this.
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Al Gulud said:
And nothing of value was lost.
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Just the ability for shitposts to remain just that, not be totally railroaded for your political beliefs by the justice system, and the presumption you defended yourself if you hurt someone who is coming after you in a violent mob. Plenty of normiecons made "run over the rioters" type memes.

He may have done it and is a waste of space, but this trial was a joke.

Stab You in the Back said:
The Ineffective Assistance of Counsel appeal basically writes itself based upon his lawyer's failure 1) to get the case removed to a neutral venue and 2) not block admission of all the extremely prejudicial evidence (like texting a picture of hitler to his mother).
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His attorney did file motions to have the venue changed and multiple things not brought into evidence. The judge denied thr motions. The judge even stated he thought the kid did it on purpose and there was no evidence of him being harassed that day (though not in front of the jury). Hopefully it will get an appeal somewhere more neutral than Charlottesville.
 
If he gets an appeal he'll likely still get the book thrown at him because he ran his car into a crowd, killed someone because of it, and sent a fucking text the night prior saying "I'm not the one who needs to be careful" in relation to the clusterfuck.

On top of that she didn't die of a heart attack, that was a 4chan joke in relation to her weight that got mistaken as the actual facts. Re-fucking-gardless of your political views the dude is a murderer and it's a disservice to our justice system to let him walk just because he doesn't like social justice or minorities.
 
RichardMongler said:
The text to his mother was absolutely stupid from all the obviously misplaced overconfidence, and indeed, his message's ominous tone really hurt his case, although it still doesn't change the fact we're entering an age where even having Hitler pics on your phone as a joke could be entered as evidence. As much in poor taste the Instagram post was made, I refuse to believe that meme showed intent because the meme was just that; a meme and a joke. Nothing more, nothing less. The smartest thing to do if you're going to do edgy humor is be anonymous, but in Fields case, it still doesn't take away from the reality that prosecution can cite old shitposts derived from memes made years ago in response to left-wing demonstrators blocking major thoroughfares as evidence. There's a world of difference between jokes and actually boasting about chasing someone down with a rifle.

Naturally, the guys at TRS aren't happy about this.
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It's pretty much that /k/ommando shooting case all over again like I said. Even if it was a meme or shitpost, the jury and prosecution wanted this guy gone and a lot of factors from the publicity of the case and the location of the trial didn't help. The fact James Fields got a shitty lawyer who was just in it for the paycheck instead of one of the many lawyers that'll represent controversial defendants sealed the deal. Still even if he had a half decent lawyer he'd get a few years in jail like the /k/ommando did. Even if they could prove he didn't kill Heather there's still the injuries from it so we're looking at a few years in prison at the very least.

I do agree with the tweet about "this can happen to you" but it wasn't so much the James Fields trial causing that as much as it was the events in late August to September 2017 where internet censorship intensified and Twitter turned into a crowdsourced hunt to see who turned up at the protest and get them fired and recently when a few protesters got arrested a year after the fact. That battle was already settled last year because the far-right only focuses on internet activism or poster campaigns like the Stormer Book Clubs or the famous It's Okay To Be White campaign nowadays so whoever ran that account is very late to the party.
 
Computery Guy said:
On top of that she didn't die of a heart attack, that was a 4chan joke in relation to her weight that got mistaken as the actual facts
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More accurately, it was a last ditch attempt to deflect blame or a cope. Hearing so many people reflexively claim she wasn't hit got really tiring after awhile because it wasn't even relevant legally speaking. What mattered in court is if the conditions James Fields created by driving into the crowd caused her death, whether he so much as grazed her or not.

Still, I do earnestly believe James Fields didn't intend to murder anyone. Body cam footage from the police officer showed a clearly distraught James Fields remorseful that his actions led to someone's death. That, to me, doesn't show someone with an intent to murder. Manslaughter would've been a far more appropriate charge, but here we are.

Recently, this pasta has been floating around /pol/ in the wake of the ruling
>Be James Fields, 20yrs old
>Attend UTR I Rally
>Declared unlawful, decide to leave town to avoid violence as Antifa have attacked almost always unprovoked with sticks, metal implements, bottles of frozen urine, improvised flamethrowers etc
>Take two other anons that you don't know in the car with you to get them safely to the parking lot, one boy and one girl, they both note that you are calm, collected, looking forward to getting home, asking about having lunch with them someday and "Maybe a little bit scared"
>Now alone after dropping anons off, time to head home to mom
>Try to navigate Charlottesville's hellish one way system
>Antifa with large semi-auto rifle points it directly at your car and, in his words "waves him on"
>Genuinely spooked.jpg
>Turn down nearest street towards intersection
>Route from current location to the main interstate is blocked by a large roadblock "Road Closed"
>Unknown to you, this was actually moved and placed there by Antifa, the road isn't closed
>Start driving down street at a slow pace
>Notice crowd up ahead, locked in one way system and have no clue as to what other route to take
>Check phone, type in your maps app the way to get back home to Ohio
>Cautiously approach the crowd with your car
>Man with large solid implement strikes your rear bumper
>Another strikes your passenger side window, both of these leave permanent marks on the car and must have been shocking
>Another throws a bottle of solidified frozen urine at your windshield with enough force to permanently lodge its self within
>Duck down out of fear, try to bluff by accelerating (to 28mph) and getting the crowd to split
>Look up, crowd isn't splitting, too late, slam on brakes as hard as you can.
>Car can only slow to 23mph before first impact with illegal street-occupying protestor but slows to 17 by the time it impacts the abandoned car in front
>Brakes are floored the entire time
>Multiple protestors begin attacking the car, smashing windows from all sides
>One is caught on film brandishing a 1911 style semiauto pistol and pointing it at the car
>Reverse and flee, literally for your life
>When they found him, he couldn't stop apologising. When they asked him if he needed medical attention, he told them not to worry about him and send all ambulances to the street where the accident happened, when he asked if everyone was okay and they told him someone had died. He wept
>All funding pages for Field's defense forcibly removed from the internet almost instantly
>Can't afford representation
>Have to get state appointed Lawyer
>First state appointed attorney has an exemplary and stunning record, Fields is in with a good chance
>Judge Moore sifts through first lawyer's history and finds that he was opposed to removal of Confederate statues
>This somehow means that Moore gets to remove him from defense and another lawyer is selected
>Low energy defense lawyer, lady with pink streak in her hair and was a part of a sex scandal. Doesn't care about Fields, doesn't seem to want her own client to win.
>Moore finds this to be perfect
>Defense requests that the case be moved out of Charlottesville due to Jury bias from local extreme libcucks who read the local newspaper "The daily progress" every day
>The daily progress leftist paper constantly calls Fields a murderer, racist, KKK member and shows edited/old pictures of Heather Heyer with yellow color filters to drive the point home.
>This request was refused point blank
>Defense asks for all charges but one to be dropped
>Judge Moore says to the court (remember this is a jury trial) "I don't see how he could have any other intent but murder. We KNOW what we saw"
>Moore allows cherrypicked sections of Field's phonecall to his mother from jail to be used where he calls Heyer's mother a "Communist" and "The enemy" but not sections from the same call where he broke down and said he never wanted to hurt anyone and acted out of fear.
>Moore allows memes from months before UTR was even announced to be used as evidence he was planning on attacking protestors at UTR.
>Moore drops all charges for Antifa rifle cuck who pointed his gun at Field's car
>One Alt Right person who was hanging with Fields before the incident was late for their witness stand, Moore holds them in contempt of court and puts them in Jail.
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Fucking good. Guy was a fucking idiot and it's a miracle he didn't end up killing more people.
 
RichardMongler said:
More accurately, it was a last ditch attempt to deflect blame or a cope. Hearing so many people reflexively claim she wasn't hit got really tiring after awhile because it wasn't even relevant legally speaking. What mattered in court is if the conditions James Fields created by driving into the crowd caused her death, whether he so much as grazed her or not.

Still, I do earnestly believe James Fields didn't intend to murder anyone. Body cam footage from the police officer showed a clearly distraught James Fields remorseful that his actions led to someone's death. That, to me, doesn't show someone with an intent to murder. Manslaughter would've been a far more appropriate charge, but here we are.

Recently, this pasta has been floating around /pol/ in the wake of the ruling
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Is... is that copypasta correct? I know it's portraying the events in the most "negative" light possible and is, yknow, a copypasta, but even then some of the events sound... unlikely.
 
An old attorney friend of mine once said that "Ineffective counsel" appeal forms were handed out to everyone on the bus ride to prison..... every person she ever defended filed one of those if they were convicted.

It's the defense version of the prosecutors "you could indict a ham sandwich"
 
TowinKarz said:
An old attorney friend of mine once said that "Ineffective counsel" appeal forms were handed out to everyone on the bus ride to prison..... every person she ever defended filed one of those if they were convicted.

It's the defense version of the prosecutors "you could indict a ham sandwich"
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This is because they never, ever work. Exaggeration, but not much of one.

Your lawyer could have been dead drunk or even literally dead and your odds of winning are minuscule.
 
CIA Nigger said:
His laughable opsec did him in just like it did for the /k/ommandos who went to some BLM rally who shot a few people there allegedly in self defense after protestors didn't like their presence. They already did themselves in when they streamed or posted videos acting like they were going in Jace Connors style. With the situation being white people showing up at a BLM protest and then shooting people (even if it was in self defense), the court was already ready to throw the book at them and was just looking for anything to lock them up for.
[MEDIA=streamable]rvgwy[/MEDIA]In April of 2017 (several months before the car incident) the one who shot them got fifteen years with the family of one angry he didn't get more time in jail.

His fatal mistake was not only that he brought his cell phone to a protest in an attempt to stream it for fame (think like Unicorn Riot does) but also that he actually trusted cell phone services to be secure. Just about any paranoid protest prep guide is going to tell you that cell phones are huge liabilities and in this case it did him in as well.


There's a lot of parallels to that case here, with the main differences being what weapons were used, the time of day it took place at, the fact one person was killed, and the disproportionate amount of media coverage this incident got. The /k/ommando shooting mostly remained known in diehard antifa circles, random articles on news sites, and 4chan of course. The fact it took place at night and wasn't at a place where everybody could get a nice neat photograph and video to spread didn't help. Cville on the other hand was already being hyped up by Twitter for days and when the vehicle incident happened that picture was on every frontpage in the USA with the video footage and photo appearing in wall to wall coverage on news stations.

Then again, a lot of the cville protesters weren't exactly the brightest. Besides the fact that many of them made the same mistakes the /k/ommandos did all over again, I've heard stories of some of them being arrested late this year. They had a whole year to flee the country to travel to some Eastern European country that doesn't give a shit like Weev and Andrew Anglin did and they blew it bigtime.


During the LA riots there was an infamous incident captured on helicopter video and televised, in which truck driver Reginald Denny was pulled out and had the shit beaten out of him. He was just trying to do the job he usually did which was to deliver sand to a plant, and instead he ended up having to undergo years of therapy and having his ability to walk and speak permanently damaged.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=kzuWr0FYe5Y
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Like I said, I wouldn't doubt it. But that crowd wouldn't have done that. These protesters are delusional, but they won't pull people out of a car, unless they hit someone first. Either way, they're retarde.d for blocking the road.
 
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