I suggest the best way to understand what is going on in the Aaron Hernandez case is to tell a story of another homicide. This presents the situation of the Hernandez case in stark terms shorn of all unnecessary facts.
On Tuesday night about 12:30 am Boston police officers are sent to an upscale condo owned by Lotte Lenya in downtown Boston. They had just been notified by Jenny Diver an occupant of the next door condo that she heard loud nerve-wracking desperate screaming for help coming from there.
Jenny’s roommate Sookey Taudry meets them outside. She tells them they heard the screaming and saw a man running out of the front door just before they called. She said he left so fast that the door to the condo was still open. She went in there and saw that Lotte’s friend Lucy Brown was lying on the plush white rug with a circle of crimson forming under her body.
The police officers rushed up to Lotte’s apartment. They saw Lucy Brown lying in a pool of her own blood. They knew they couldn’t help her.
Homicide investor Bradley was called in. He took over the case. An autopsy would later show she had been stabbed multiple times.
Bradley first tracked down Lotte. He found she was at a convention in Chicago. Lotte told him that Lucy lived in New York City but was originally from Boston and would stay with her when she came back there. If Lotte was out-of-town Lucy would notify her if she was going to stay there.
Bradley figured out the homicide occurred about 12:25. He knew if he could find out who Lucy was with that night in the condo he’d have a good idea who did the murder. He asked Lotte when she last heard from Lucy. Lotte said Lucy sent her a text message that night telling her she was going to use the place.
Inquiring further he learned the message was sent at 12:15 within ten minutes of her death. It read: “Macky and I staying overnight.” Asked if she knew who Macky was. Lotte said it was “Red MacHeath.” Bradley knew of MacHeath. His nickname was Red the Knife.
Bradley chased down MacHeath. He found him at Louis Miller’s office at 8:00 that morning. He wasn’t happy he’d have to question MacHeath in front of his lawyer. There was nothing he could do about it.
Bradley learned from MacHeath that he and Lucy were old-time friends both having grown up in Boston. When she came to Boston he’d sometimes go out with her. He said he had been with her the night she was murdered but had dropped her off about 11:15 or so.
He said he then went to an apartment in the South End to meet with some of his friends. Bradley asked for their names. Miller then interrupted. He told Bradley his client wasn’t going to say anything else. Bradley figured MacHeath hadn’t figured out what friends would give him an alibi.
Bradley knew MacHeath gave him what he would learn anyway from other witness who he’d track down which he eventually did. He also knew that his buddies would back him enough so that his alibi would hold. The last anyone on the level saw Red MacHeath and Lucy Brown together was when they left Sammy’s By The Sea in the Seaport district around 11:00 pm.
After working hard for weeks Bradley sat down with the prosecutor Tom Tuesday and laid out the evidence for him. Tuesday told Bradley he did a good job but they had no way to prove that MacHeath was in the condo with Lucy Brown. They agreed MacHeath got away with the murder. He wouldn’t be prosecuted for Lucy’s homicide.
That’s the state of the law in Massachusetts according to Judge W. Susan Garsh’s ruling in Aaron Hernandez’s case. Just like the text evidence putting Odon Lloyd the alleged victim of Hernandez together with him minutes before the murder, the text evidence putting Lucy together with Red MacHeath just five minutes prior to the murder would not be let into evidence.
I’m sure you have no problem with it.
Hmmm. The perception is that text messages are presumed to be 100% factual and accurate?
At what point is the statement “X was present with Y Z minutes before Y’s death” sufficient evidence that X caused Z’s death?
What you really want is to be able to prove that Z=zero and that X was with Y at Y’s death. That still leaves the problem of proving that X caused Y’s death.
Ed:
Yes, the text messages are presumed to be the 100% accurate representation of the person who sent them. You have a problem with that? You think they got garbled in the transmission?
No one bit of evidence is sufficient but all add up to make the picture complete. It’s called in the law circumstantial evidence where each piece buttresses the other.