Charlottesville murder trial: James Fields killing of Heather Heyer was ‘willful, premeditated murder’, says prosecution

Mr Fields' defence team argue their client was scared for his life when he rammed his car into the crowd of counter protesters

The trial of the man who killed one person after ramming his car into a crowd of counter protesters last year at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia has begun, with prosecutors telling jurors the accused had every intention of causing harm when he slammed down on his car’s accelerator.

“It was willful, premeditated murder,” Nina Alice-Antony, the prosecutor said of 21-year-old James Fields.

Mr. Fields faces charges of first-degree murder, malicious wounding, and failure to stop at an accident involving a death. He has pleaded not guilty. The defendent has also been charged in federal court on hate crime charges, in which the death penalty could be imposed.

Mr Fields’ attorney claimed his client feared for his life in the moments that led up to the death of Heather Heyer last August in an incident that sent shock waves around the country and sparked a national debate about white supremacist groups in the US.

“You will hear James tell officers he feared for his safety,” John Hill said. Mr Fields told officers he had been fearful for his life before he accelerated into the crowd. “He was scared to death”.

Ms Heyer’s death capped two days of protests in Charlottesville last August, where hundreds of white supremacists descended to protest the planned removal of a Confederate statue from a public park as a part of the “Unite the Right” rally. Those demonstrations brought demonstrators who marched on the University of Virginia campus with lit tiki torches while shouting white supremacist and antisemitic chants.

Those demonstrations attracted a considerable counter-demonstration — a group that included 32-year-old Ms Heyer — who had congregated peacefully on a street when the driving attack took place, leaving Heyer dead alongside several others who were injured.

President Donald Trump was heavily criticised for his response to the violence after he said there were “very fine people on both sides,” seemingly equating the white nationalists with those who demonstrated against them.

In a series of statements, the president changed his tune over the span of several days before suggesting during a press conference that removing Confederate statues may not be prudent because doing so would mark precedent for removing statues of non-Confederate historical figures, including American founding fathers.

Those remarks left enough a mark on the grieving mother of Ms Heyer, Susan Bro, who refused to return phone calls from the White House after the president’s remarks.

While the events in Charlottesville shocked the US, the so-called “alt-right” movement that rallied the white supremacists last year appears to have lost steam. On the year anniversary of the rally, in August, just dozens of white supremacists turned up at an anniversary rally in Washington to mark the occasion.

Fields’ case is being heard by a jury of nine women and seven men. One African-American juror is on the bench. The trial is expected to last roughly three weeks.

The trial continues.