CHARLOTTESVILLE, Nov 30 — An American neo-Nazi was “scared to death” when he mowed down and killed a counter-protester at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, his lawyers said yesterday as they opened the defence in his murder trial.
James Alex Fields Jr drove his car into a crowd of activists in the Virginia city during a day of racially aggravated violence on August 12 last year, killing 32-year-old paralegal Heather Heyer.
Fields, 21, from Ohio, is accused of first degree murder and faces hit-and-run charges and eight counts of causing serious injury.
Hundreds had descended on Charlottesville on the day of Heyer’s death, either to march in or rail against a “Unite the Right Rally”.
Unrest quickly flared as riot police and national guard troops flooded the city’s downtown to contain clashes between white far-right supporters and counter-protestors that led to a state of emergency being called.
The violence capped two days of confrontations over the removal of a Confederate statue that shook the country, and became a symbol of the growing audacity of the far right under President Donald Trump.
“This is not a whodunnit case. This is not where we need to figure (out) who was in that car,” said defence attorney John Hill, with both sides indicating that the jury’s job would be to decide Fields’s intent, rather than the basic facts of the case.
‘No one around the car’
The lawyer painted a picture of chaos as the opposing sides, some of whom were armed with guns, fought pitched battles.
After Fields was detained, he expressed remorse and told police he “feared for his safety and that he was scared to death,” Hill said.
Nina Antony, prosecuting, told the jury however that a mountain of photographic and video evidence would show Fields’s actions were pre-meditated.
“Watch what he did that day,” said Antony.
“Listen to the words he’s chanting.
“Look at the facial expressions he makes. What are those telling you? What are the options he was presented with and what choices did he make?”
Shortly before Fields drove his Dodge Challenger into the crowd, she said, he came to a “full and complete stop a distance from the group” and began revving his engine while watching the counter-protesters.
“There was no one around the car. There was no one behind the car,” Antony told the jury.
While others were able to jump clear or hit glancingly, Heyer was “directly in the defendant’s path, unable to get out of the way.
“The defendant (was) able to get away with her blood and her flesh still on his vehicle.”
Emotional testimony
Heyer’s mother Susan Bro was present in the front row of the court, having earlier told reporters seeking comment she was too distraught to speak.
A few feet away, Fields watched the proceedings attentively, wearing glasses, a blue sweater and a light blue shirt.
The court heard from witnesses including Marcus Martin, the subject of a Pulitzer-prize winning photograph that became synonymous with the incident, in which he is seen launched into the air after being struck by the car.
Martin told the court he had decided to attend the rally with his fiancee Marissa Blair, whom he has since married, another friend and Heyer, who worked with Blair at a law firm.
“She was a great person,” he said of Heyer, visibly overcome with emotion.
Martin recalled looking down at his phone when Fields began his charge on the group.
“The only thing I was thinking about is getting my wife out of the way,” he said.
“I pushed her and that’s when I got hit.” The impact shattered Martin’s left leg and broke his ankle, forcing him to wear a medical boot for eight months.
Martin and other witnesses called by the prosecution meanwhile said that at the time of the incident, the white supremacists had been dispersed and the atmosphere was peaceful — contrasting the defence narrative of widespread chaos.
“We were claiming victory. We were shouting ‘Who’s street? Our street!’“
Earlier, Antony had cited two images posted by Fields to Instagram in May 2017.
“And in both those images you’ll see a group being struck, described as protesters,” she said.
“On August 12, James Alex Fields Jr was here in Charlottesville with anger and images of violence fixed in his mind. The case is about his decision to act on that anger and those images.”
The opening arguments came after three days of jury selection.
The 16 members, four of whom are substitutes, comprises nine women and seven men — one of whom is black. — AFP
