The Latest: Lawyers slam restoration of Hernandez conviction
BOSTON (AP) — The Latest on the reinstatement of Aaron Hernandez’s murder conviction (all times local):
2 p.m.
Attorneys for late NFL star Aaron Hernandez are criticizing the state’s highest court decision to reinstate his murder conviction.
The Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday scrapped the legal principle that erased Hernandez’s conviction after he killed himself in prison. It also ordered Hernandez’s conviction to be restored.
The ruling doesn’t impact any other past cases.
Hernandez’s lawyers say they plan to ask the court to reconsider the reinstatement of Hernandez’s conviction.
They say there is no reason the new rule should be applied to Hernandez’s case and that the court “departed from its usual standards in coming to this decision.”
Hernandez was found guilty in 2015 of killing semi-professional football player Odin Lloyd.
The 27-year-old was found dead in his prison cell in April 2017, days after being acquitted of most charges in a separate double-murder case.
10:15 a.m.
Massachusetts’ highest court has reinstated former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez’s murder conviction.
The Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday scrapped the legal principle that erased Hernandez’s conviction after he killed himself in prison, and ordered the onetime football star’s conviction be restored.
Hernandez was found guilty in 2015 of killing semi-professional football player Odin Lloyd.
The 27-year-old former football star was found dead in his prison cell in April 2017, days after being acquitted of most charges in a separate double-murder case.
Prosecutors said the legal principle was unfair to victims and outdated.
Under the new rule laid out by the court, the conviction will stand but the court record will note the conviction was neither affirmed nor reversed because the defendant died while the appeal was pending.
