It’s clear in the filings made by Hernandez’s lawyers, Michael K. Fee and James L. Sultan, of Boston, that they feel the records could assist the former football star in his legal defense.
“As such, any record bearing on a defendant’s psychological function, illnesses or afflictions, addiction, cognitive ability, social interactions, behavior under stress, relationship with authority and other such factors are undeniably relevant to the defense of an individual charged with first-degree murder,” the lawyers wrote. “Indeed, a defendant is entitled to place before a jury any evidence that is at all probative of his or her mental condition.”
While this may be so under MA law, I'm not sure it automatically follows that a scouting report from 2009 would be
admissible to show any of those factors at the time of the murder. It's
possibly a business record, and admissible under that theory, but it's still just words on a page - who knows who wrote it and why, or to what extent their information was accurate? I'm pretty sure if there's any formal diagnosis of anything from a third party in the report then the defense won't be able to backdoor that information through a scouting report, especially if the individuals who contributed to the report are still around and able to be called.
If I was the judge, I'd be wary of allowing such a report into evidence, absent some other evidence or testimony that corroborates what it says. (And as a practical matter, the State should be able to butcher the poor shmoe who introduces the report (custodian), basically by bringing up the fact that it's just a random report, and that the custodian does not even know if the people appearing in the report are real doctors, etc.)
If the defense attorneys are suggesting they'll need the information for sentencing, that's another thing, but for the same reasons, the shouldn't carry much weight on it's own.
All that said, the Pats should probably be compelled to provide that report.
soxfan121 said:
Apples and oranges. Carruth's case was far more "certain" than Hernandez's is pre-trial. Hernandez has a bad timeline and enough illegal weapons to do heavy jail time but proving he committed first degree murder without the murder weapon and contradictory eyewitness testimony is going to be hard. It's part of the reason the State wants to tie the previous murders - where they have the murder weapon and better eyewitnesses - to the Lloyd proceeding.
RR, and others: If the State can't convict the Lloyd matter, could that put some of the evidence for the double-murder on shakier ground (as that all results from suspicion of the Lloyd murder)?
Yes and no. First off there's no sort of "grading" of the evidence that happens in separate trials. The evidence put before the jury is what it is and the jury decides what they decide without regards to another case. So let's say the same fingerprint or gun is introduced in both cases - there's no pro or con "weight" that attaches to that fingerprint or gun no matter how many trials it may have appeared in. Each case stands on its own.
That said, there are two main issues and a side issue.
One, if a
witness testifies in Trial 1 and screws-up, whatever they said (under oath) can be brought out in Trial 2
IF that witness is also called in trial two and if what they said was relevant to Trial 2. (Keep in mind that almost all evidence (and certainly all the juicy stuff) has to have a human to vouch for it and introduce it to the jury. Some humans are fungible, some humans are the only ones that can testify about what they saw or did or hear or what physical evidence they collected.)
In certain circumstances, a screw-up witness in Trial 1 can be fatal to the State's case in both trials. For example, if the lead detective was the same on both cases and that LD destroyed evidence, made racist "I'm going to get AH no matter what" type comments, or threatened a witness while investigating Case 1 and that came out in Trial 1, then those sort of things can be brought out in Trial 2 to show the bias of the police department against AH. (The defense can call the screw-up witness on their own in Trial 2 to rebut any "fixed" testimony that the state tries to offer through another, cleaner witness who knows the same things as the screw-up witness.)
However, there's the issues of witness fungibility and relevance. So, if a fingerprint technician was drunk on duty in Case 1/Trial1, but completely uninvolved in Case2/Trial2, there should no discernible carryover to Trial 2.
Two, if AH is found not-gulity in Trial1, I am honestly not sure how that would affect
a motion to mention the facts of Trial 1 during Trial 2. MA probably has specific case law on this. FWIW, I can see arguments for a total preclusion of the Trial 1 scenario during Trial 2. I can also see arguments, depending on the circumstances, that the jury's verdict in Trial 1 has no bearing on the bad act AH was accused of in Trial 1 (say AH is found NG of Murder during Trial 1, but theres on finding on Manslaughter because the jury wasn't asked to decide on that specific crime - therefore the prosecution couldn't argue AH intentionally killed Lloyd during Trial 2, but could say that the evidence shows AH committed another similar killing.)
Side issue, which is a variant of the witness screw-up problem. If evidence was found in Case 2 that was later shown to be unconstitutionally seized due to some wrongdoing during Case 1 (let's say it comes out during Trial 1), that may affect the admissibility of some of the evidence in Trial 2. There would probably be another layer of litigation to address that - a hearing on the admissibility of evidence.
The above "problems" for the State are pretty unlikely. You never know at trial though - people do the damnedest things on the stand sometimes. That's why experienced attorneys will tell you that there's no sure thing when you put a case in front of a jury. Here, the State's case seems like its very diverse, meaning that lots of points of information coincide to paint the picture of the crime. Even if one witness messes up, there should be a lot of information before the jury indicative of guilt. From the defense perspective, it's a sort of death by a thousands cuts, instead of death by the headsman's axe, scenario. If cutter #546 misses badly and falls on their face, you're still dead (unless you turn it into a sideshow). If you're lucky enough for the headsman to pull up with a charlie horse, and cut off his own foot, you've got a fighting chance.
