Anyone have any theories on why TF he pled guilty? Surely there was a postmortem that would have exonerated him...
It's because Virginia has the death penalty and is historically right up there with Texas when it comes to actually using it, and they probably threatened him with capital murder charges if he didn't plead guilty. Oldest trick in the book.
The culture hypes up the death penalty as the end-all and be-all of punishments but I do think in all honesty, a life sentence is ten times more cruel and unusual, especially if you're young like James Fields was. Plus, a death penalty conviction gets automatic appeals and you can use more of them than if you plead guilty and got a life sentence.
If you had a more "based" Republican (as opposed to a traditionalist Bible thumper or a neocon) who ran for Governor of Virginia and won in 2021, I'd give an outright full pardon for James Fields complete with full restoration of his rights the day after inauguration just to fuck with the leftists and the neoliberal NoVAcrats if I were the governor. Virginia has a law where governors can only hold office for a single term, so reelection is not going to be an issue.
There's also a few differences between Kyle Rittenhouse and James Fields that work in Kyle's favor as well.
1. Kyle is a minor
2. Kyle has no known affiliation with any "hate groups" that a normie could identify and aside from the most basic centrist and conservative stances, his social media presence is pretty inoffensive. Not even a Pepe or Wojak meme, let alone any true and honest white supremacist rhetoric.
3. Kyle's victims were actively attacking him and it all was caught on camera in its entirety, plus they were scum and not a single one of them were black or female (or even troon) so it's a bit harder to play the racial hate crime angle convincingly despite their best efforts. Heather Heyer was just some woke college girl who was caught in the wrong place and the wrong time. She had a clean record and didn't have any evident ties to any Antifa gangs or groups like the DSA aside from self-identifying as a generic socialist on social media.
4. Charlottesville was two days of rioting less than a year after a highly controversial election and the only confirmed kills were Heather Heyer and two guys in an unrelated helicopter crash over in rural Albermarle County. It was basically a /pol/ convention gone horribly wrong and a lot of the normies were pissed at the guys who organized Unite The Right.
The Kenosha incident was preceded by several months of violent rioting and crimes motivated by race and politics. A lot of scared normies and Karens had already been waking up to the fact that the Woke Left has gone batshit even if they're too scared to call out the communists, black supremacists, and anarchists. Things have gotten worse for the leftists since then.
Give me all the rainbows you want and I'm sure all the blackpill doomers, fake towelhead /pol/ kiddies, and (((traditionalist))) faggots most certainly will, but I think Kyle will walk on most of the big charges. Worst-case scenario, he'll get popped for the underage weapons possession but can get a plea deal where it gets bumped down to a Class 1 misdemeanor and he has to do probation or something.