Lawyers for former National Football League star Aaron Hernandez began presenting their defense at his double-murder trial Monday with a fan who said Hernandez was polite and calm the night he is accused of gunning down two men after a brief encounter at a Boston nightclub. The former tight end was a fourth-round pick in 2010 who played for the Patriots for three seasons, and he signed a five-year contract extension a month after the double murder.
Aaron Hernandez's lawyers called a high-risk audible in the waning minutes of their case by suggesting one of two men he's accused of gunning down may have been returning gunfire.
Jurors are expected to begin deliberations Friday after getting final instructions from Judge Jeffrey Locke. Looming over the process is Hernandez's existing murder conviction and sentence.
He continued by blaming police for conducting a poor investigation into the shootings and said that it was incredible it took them so long to determine Hernandez was the alleged shooter. It's not clear what role Belichick may have played in the story Baez was trying to tell on behalf of Hernandez, who himself did not take the witness stand, but the lawyer chose to move on without the coach.
"There is absolutely no evidence that Aaron Hernandez committed this crime", Baez said.
"We're not asking you to speculate", Haggan told the jury.
Haley: First Assad Leaves, Then We Talk
Speaking to ABC's This Week , Tillerson emphasized there was "no change" in the US military stance toward Syria. The primary focus of the worldwide community should be on ending this war, not on lighting new fires.
During closing arguments Thursday, prosecutor Patrick Haggan said Hernandez gunned down two men in Boston in 2012 after one of them accidentally bumped into Hernandez at a nightclub and spilled his drink. Hernandez was allegedly a passenger in a auto driven later that night by Bradley, who was told to follow a vehicle containing the two men. Baez called Bradley a "liar, "perjurer" and "parasite" who got the "deal of a lifetime" from prosecutors after he named Hernandez as the shooter".
Prosecutors have said Hernandez was enraged over the encounter at the club because he felt disrespected.
Relatives of de Abreu and Furtado filled the first two rows of the courtroom during closing arguments.
Hernandez, 27, has pleaded not guilty to charges of killing Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in a drive-by shooting in Boston's South End in the early morning hours of July 16, 2012.
Bradley testified that Hernandez took out a gun and opened fire on the men's vehicle at a stoplight two hours after the nightclub encounter.
Defense attorney Baez criticized the immunity deals that prosecutors gave Bradley as well as to those who may have been involved in Bradley's shooting. In the Odin Lloyd murder, the jury deliberated for seven days before convicting Hernandez.
Comments