Case against Hernandez has three big holes
Evidence in Aaron Hernandez’s double-murder trial should start coming out tomorrow, and if the lengthy jury-selection process taught us anything, it’s that Suffolk prosecutors are particularly nervous about three holes in the case against the disgraced former New England Patriot.
There is no forensic evidence; their star witness is a convicted criminal; and the alleged motive is unconvincing.
Mark Lee, chief of the Suffolk District Attorney’s Homicide Unit, systematically asked potential jurors whether they would be able to consider the prosecutors’ case fairly even if there isn’t any forensic evidence presented.
“There is no set way for us to prove the case. There is no recipe,” Lee said last week, addressing a young scientist. “What would you think about the case if you hear no forensic evidence at all?”
The jury candidate said he would have a hard time with the case, and Lee eventually used one of his 16 challenges to have the man excused.
Other jurors were barred for similar responses, as prosecutors want a jury that will consider all evidence and not fault them for not having the DNA or fingerprints needed to peg Hernandez.
Prosecutors also asked how potential jurors would weigh the testimony of an eyewitness with a checkered past. The key witness for the prosecution, Alexander Bradley, is currently sitting in prison for shooting up a Connecticut bar.
Bradley is expected to testify that he was in the vehicle with Hernandez on July 16, 2012, when the then-Patriot shot and killed Daniel Jorge Correia de Abreu and Safiro Furtado. Bradley is the only person with a reliable memory of the moment.
He has also been granted immunity for his testimony — a fact that lead defense attorney Jose Baez and Hernandez’s high-powered legal team will surely bring up when they attempt to discredit him.
“I don’t think you can trust the message if you can’t trust the messenger,” Baez said after a hearing earlier this month.
Finally, there is the flimsy motive. Prosecutors argue that Hernandez killed two men in the primes of their lives over a spilled drink at a Boston club.
While prosecutors don’t have to prove motive to obtain a murder conviction, Lee probed jurors over whether they would be able to concentrate on the evidence even if they don’t buy the explanation.
If they couldn’t, prosecutors did everything they could to keep them away from the jury box.