Lawyers want Aaron Hernandez’s murder conviction dismissed
BOSTON — Lawyers for former NFL star Aaron Hernandez formally asked a court on Tuesday to dismiss his first-degree murder conviction now that he has died.
Under a long-standing Massachusetts legal principle, courts customarily vacate the convictions of defendants who die before their appeals are heard.
Legal experts say the doctrine holds that it is unfair to defendants or their survivors if a conviction is allowed to stand before they had an opportunity to clear their names on appeal in case some kind of error or other injustice was determined to have occurred at trial.
Hernandez hanged himself at a maximum-security state prison last week, just days after he was acquitted of fatally shooting two Boston men in 2012. He was serving life without parole in the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player,