Fight over conviction turns to SJC
Court weighs law nullifying Hernandez verdict
The state’s highest court has agreed to consider whether it will continue to recognize the old Bay State law that erased Aaron Hernandez’s first-degree murder conviction from the books after he killed himself in his jail cell.
Bristol prosecutors asked the Supreme Judicial Court to either throw out or refine the abatement ab initio doctrine, arguing that the rule no longer makes sense and would incentivize suicide in some cases.
“The instant case presents the question of whether a convicted criminal defendant can guarantee that his conviction will be vacated by killing himself,” Bristol prosecutor Shoshana Stern wrote in her office’s pitch to the SJC last month. “If the answer to this question is ‘yes’ in all circumstances, it would provide some number of defendants with a perverse incentive to suicide.”
Hernandez, the fallen former New England Patriot, hanged himself in his jail cell on the morning of April 19, 2017, according to authorities.
The next day, his attorneys filed a motion to throw out Hernandez’s April 15, 2015, first-degree murder conviction, which stemmed from the June 17, 2013, killing of Odin Lloyd.
Superior Court Judge Susan Garsh, who oversaw Hernandez’s high-profile murder trial, said her hands were tied by the abatement ab initio doctrine, which causes a conviction to be overturned if a defendant dies before his appeal is heard. On May 9, 2017, she ruled that, under that rule, Hernandez’s convictions were thrown out.
Bristol prosecutors have argued that Hernandez killed himself because he knew his convictions would be overturned, and that his death could possibly benefit his family. They argue that the doctrine should either be eliminated or not apply when a defendant kills himself.
“It also provides an opportunity for defendants in particular factual scenarios to game the system — for instance ensuring that money owed in restitution remains with their heirs rather than being paid to their victims — in ways that are fundamentally contrary to public justice,” Stern wrote.
Hernandez’s appeals team responded earlier this month, arguing that the SJC shouldn’t hear the case because Bristol prosecutors didn’t challenge the validity of the law in front of Garsh and are procedurally barred from bringing it up on appeal. The filing also notes that Bristol prosecutors’ petition to the SJC overlooked the fact that the old Bay State law is used elsewhere.
“It does not account for the fact that, as Judge Garsh noted in her ruling, all of the federal courts apply this doctrine,” Hernandez attorney John Thompson wrote. “All told, the vast majority of jurisdictions in this country apply the abatement ab initio doctrine when an appellant dies while his or her appeal is pending.”