Aaron Hernandez’s lawyer has been given the go-ahead to question under oath an anonymous tipster who claimed one of the jurors who convicted Hernandez of murder was biased, raising a faint glimmer of hope of a new trial for the disgraced Patriots tight end.
Superior court judge Susan Garsh on Tuesday approved the request from lawyer James Sultan. Prosecutors objected, but Garsh overruled. She says the questioning of the tipster, who raised concerns about one of the jurors, will be in court with Hernandez present, but the session will be closed to the public.
The woman hasn’t been identified in court documents. But the district attorney’s office says she began a sexually explicit relationship, including letters, with Hernandez after he was arrested in 2013 for the shooting death of Odin Lloyd.
Sultan, Hernandez’s lawyer, says the woman called him anonymously after Hernandez’s conviction in April and raised questions about a juror. Compelling evidence of juror misconduct could theoretically lead to a new trial.
In April, after a 10-week trial in Fall River, Massachusetts, Hernandez was convicted of first-degree murder over the death of Odin Lloyd two years previously, in an industrial park a mile from Hernandez’s home. Hernandez is now serving a mandatory life sentence in state prison without the possibility of parole. He is also awaiting trial for a 2012 double homicide in Boston.
