A retired Massachusetts Superior Court judge says that there is a possibility that former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez could walk free after his murder case.
Isaac Borenstein, who is now “a professor of law at Suffolk and Northeastern,” said it would not surprise him if prosecutors failed to convict Hernandez of the first-degree murder of Odin Lloyd.
“I would not be shocked if this verdict went a way that didn’t necessarily looked like at this point. It’s the way the justice system works,” he told MyFoxBoston. “As a prosecutor I think they have a tough time sorting out exactly what was Aaron Hernandez’s role, what is the role of the other people, and how are they going to come across as witnesses.”
Borenstein “has presided over dozens of murder cases during his 22-year long career,” and “if Hernandez does go to trial, he expects a battle.”
As the outlet noted, “investigators believe that there were two people with the 24-year-old when Odin Lloyd was killed, Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz. Ortiz is an admitted angel dust user with a lengthy criminal record”:
Ortiz is charged with being an accessory after the fact in connection with the Lloyd murder. He’s told detectives on the record that Hernandez and Hernandez alone got out of the car with Lloyd when Lloyd was executed in North Attleboro. Despite credibility issues, the state would likely want Ortiz to spell that out to a jury. However, Ortiz’s lawyer John Connors has suggested that he is done cooperating.”
In a telephone interview Wednesday with Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, Connors said, “I have no control over whether he will be called as a witness, he does have a Fifth Amendment privilege and that’s about all I can say on that.”
If Ortiz is done cooperating, Wallace is the only other possible eye witness to the murder.
Authorities have still not found the murder weapon. Hernandez reportedly destroyed his home security system on the night of the alleged murder.
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