Hernandez attorney, judge argue in trial
The high-powered attorney defending Aaron Hernandez against a double-homicide rap challenged the fallen NFL star’s trial judge to settle their differences behind closed doors yesterday as the defense cried foul for a second straight day that they are being humiliated in front of the jury.
“If you want to take me into your office and rip me a new one, by all means do so, but not in front of this jury and not when this man’s life is on the line,” attorney Jose Baez thundered at Suffolk Superior Court Judge Jeffrey A. Locke.
And that was just one cloudburst in this brewing perfect storm of exhaustion, frustration and sickness pervading Courtroom 906 after 18 days of testimony.
Despite Locke’s decision to suspend the trial last week in hopes of sparing the jury a fastspreading virus, he announced yesterday that the jurors were now sick, as well.
Hernandez’s fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins, is slated to take the stand when the trial resumes today. However, Locke may decide this morning to cancel all testimony for the day.
The prosecution is just days away from resting its case.
Among witnesses taking the stand against Hernandez yesterday was warehouse worker Ryan McDonnell, 28, a lifelong pal the disgraced Pro Bowler made his personal assistant when McDonnell fell on hard times. Just hours before Hernandez, 27, is alleged to have shot to death Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado at a South End stoplight on July 16, 2012, for spilling a drink on him in a nightclub, the pair returned from a weeklong trip to Costa Rica.
“We were super close,” McDonnell said.
Jurors did not witness the shouting match between Baez and Locke, but were asked by the judge afterward not to read into his temper flaring over “occasional feelings of exasperation,” brought on by trial delays. Baez went off on Locke when the judge told him he couldn’t find any grounds for one of his objections.
“If you don’t want me to defend Mr. Hernandez I will sit down and shut up,” Baez said. “You yell at me in front of the jury ... as if delaying this trial is my fault.”
Locke subsequently struck the phone-record testimony Baez wanted out of the trial record and tried soothing him with flattery: “You’ve enriched the courts of the commonwealth through your practice in this case,” Locke said.
In other developments, Locke ruled that taped phone conversations Hernandez had with his mother and Miami Dolphins center Michael Pouncey during his imprisonment for the 2013 murder of Odin L. Lloyd may not be played to the jury by prosecutors. Jurors also watched a chilling interview Hernandez gave WBZ-TV’s Steve Burton while still a tight end with the Pats in which he told the reporter the life he wanted to lead “is in my hands.”