The ongoing Aaron Hernandez legal battle just got a lot more complicated.
On Tuesday, a Massachusetts judge abated Hernandez's conviction in the 2015 Odin Lloyd murder case, citing that Hernandez had passed before he was able to exhaust all of his legal appeals.
#BREAKING : judge erases #AaronHernandez conviction because he died before all his appeals were exhausted. @espn
— Shayna Hayes (@MsShaynaT) May 9, 2017
Aaron Hernandez's 2015 murder conviction has been abated by Judge Susan Garsh. He is technically not guilty. Commonwealth likely to appeal.
— Dan Wetzel (@DanWetzel) May 9, 2017
The abated conviction means that in the eyes of the State, Hernandez was not guilty in the case. The Massachusetts government is expected to challenge the ruling. The ruling will have a large effect on the civil suits against Hernandez's estate, because if the abatement is upheld, then the original rulings can not be used against Hernandez's estate in court.
The decision comes after Hernandez was found dead in his prison cell back in April in what was ruled a suicide. Hernandez committed suicide just a week after he had been found not guilty of the murders of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado. Hernandez was still serving a life sentence for the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd, but Hernandez's legal team was preparing to appeal that decision after the not-guilty verdict in the double-murder case.
Hernandez was drafted in 2010 by the New England Patriots after a standout career as a tight end at the University of Florida. His NFL career came to a stunning end in June of 2013 when he was arrested for the murder of Lloyd after a short investigation.
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