Judge tosses Aaron Hernandez’s murder conviction after apparent suicide

FALL RIVER, Mass. (AP) - Former NFL star Aaron Hernandez’s conviction in a 2013 murder can be erased because he died before his appeal was heard, a judge ruled Tuesday.

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Judge E. Susan Garsh said a legal doctrine that calls for vacating convictions when a defendant dies before an appeal can be heard was binding precedent. She said she was compelled to follow it.

The former New England Patriots tight end hanged himself in his prison cell last month while serving a life sentence on a first-degree murder conviction in the death of semi-professional football player Odin Lloyd. He died five days after being acquitted in a separate double slaying in 2012.

Prosecutor Patrick Bomberg had argued that Hernandez “should not be able to accomplish in death what he could not accomplish in life.”

Hernandez’s appellate attorney told the judge that the state’s highest court has applied the legal doctrine “without exception,” even in cases of suicide.

In a court filing last week, Bristol District Attorney Thomas Quinn III argued that a defendant’s death while an appeal is pending does not always require what is known as “abatement,” including when “a defendant’s death is a result of his own conscious, deliberate and voluntary act.”