Mark Heyer, whose daugh­ter, Heather Heyer (pic­tured), was killed in 2017 while protest­ing a white suprema­cist ral­ly in Charlottesville, Virginia, says he does not want fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors to pur­sue the death penal­ty against the man who killed his daugh­ter. James Alex Fields, Jr., a 21-year-old who iden­ti­fies as a neo-Nazi, was tried in Virginia state court and con­vict­ed of mur­der and a litany of oth­er crimes for dri­ving a car into a crowd of pro­test­ers, killing Heather Heyer and injur­ing many oth­ers. On December 11, the state-court judge accept­ed the jury’s sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tion and sen­tenced Fields to life in prison plus 419 years and a fine of $480,000. However, Fields still faces fed­er­al hate crime charges aris­ing out of the inci­dent, includ­ing one mur­der charge for which pros­e­cu­tors could seek the death penalty.

Mark Heyer told BuzzFeed News, ​“I don’t rel­ish the thought of [Fields] get­ting the death penal­ty. That’s my belief. I’d rather him get his heart straight and get life [in prison].” On the issue of Fields’s hate­ful beliefs, Heyer won­dered, ​“What hap­pened to make him hate that much? You don’t just wake up in the morn­ing like that. He had hatred build­ing up in him for years.” Heyer expressed sym­pa­thy for Fields’s fam­i­ly, say­ing, ​“He was too stu­pid and too young to real­ize what he was about to do would change his whole life. I think about his moth­er and what she’s hav­ing to go through.” During the state court tri­al, Fields’s lawyers pre­sent­ed evi­dence that he had suf­fered from psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders dat­ing back to his ear­ly child­hood. Heather Heyer’s moth­er, Susan Bro, has not pub­licly shared her views on the appro­pri­ate pun­ish­ment for Fields, but has pro­mot­ed her daughter’s lega­cy of fight­ing racism. In an email to BuzzFeed News, she wrote that killing Fields ​“would not bring Heather back.”

Federal pros­e­cu­tors have not yet announced whether they will seek the death penal­ty against Fields. Whether they are able to do so may depend, in part, upon the out­come of an unre­lat­ed case being con­sid­ered by the U.S. Supreme Court. On December 6, 2018, the Court heard argu­ment in Gamble v. United States, a chal­lenge to a legal con­cept known as the ​“sep­a­rate sov­er­eigns” doc­trine, which allows a defen­dant to be tried in state and fed­er­al court for the same con­duct. Terance Gamble, who was charged in both state and fed­er­al court with being a felon in pos­ses­sion of a firearm, argued that fac­ing both state and fed­er­al charges vio­lat­ed the Constitution’s dou­ble jeop­ardy clause, which pro­tects against being ​“twice put in jeop­ardy” ​“for the same offence.” If the Court rules in Gamble’s favor, it could block Fields from being tried in fed­er­al court on at least some of the fed­er­al charges. Court watch­ers said after the argu­ment that the Court did not appear inclined to strike down the sep­a­rate sovereigns doctrine.

(Blake Montgomery, Heather Heyer’s Father Doesn’t Want Her Killer To Get The Death Penalty, BuzzFeed News, December 7, 2018; Paul Duggan, James A. Fields Jr. sen­tenced to life in prison in Charlottesville car attack, Washington Post, December 11, 2018; Vanessa Romo, Charlottesville Jury Recommends 419 Years Plus Life For Neo-Nazi Who Killed Protester, NPR, December 11, 2018; Amy Howe, Argument analy­sis: Majority appears ready to uphold ​“sep­a­rate sov­er­eigns” doc­trine, SCOTUSblog, December 6, 2018.) See Victims.

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