Hernandez murder conviction is reinstated
In a precedent-reversing decision, the highest court in Massachusetts ruled Wednesday that Aaron Hernandez’s firstdegree murder conviction must be effectively reinstated, despite the former National Football League star tight end with the New England Patriots having died by suicide before his appeal could be heard.
Hernandez was convicted in 2015 of the ’13 murder of Odin Lloyd. He was serving a life sentence without parole when officials say he hanged himself in his cell in the state’s maximum security facility in April ’17, days after his acquittal in a different double-murder trial.
The state’s Supreme Judicial Court declared outdated the legal principle, based in English canonical law, that deems a conviction final only if a lower-court finding has been considered by an appeals court. That doctrine of abatement ab initio (“from the beginning”) is “outdated,’’ associate justice Elspeth Cypher wrote in the opinion.
Under the court’s ruling, the Hernandez conviction will stand, with the court record noting that it was neither affirmed nor reversed because the defendant died before an appeal was heard.
Bristol County District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III wrote Wednesday that, thanks to the court’s ruling, “justice is served.”