Former NFL star Aaron Hernandez is now an innocent man.
BRISTLE COUNTY, MA — Former NFL star Aaron Hernandez is now an innocent man. At least legally speaking.
That’s after a Massachusetts judge wiped a murder conviction from his record following his suicide last month in a Massachusettes prison.
The judge threw out the conviction due to a state doctrine called abatement ab initio. That doctrine states that anyone who dies following a conviction, but before they have exhausted their appeals will have their legal records cleared.
The rise and fall of ex-NFL star, accused murderer Aaron Hernandez
In this case, Hernandez’s suicide required the court to treat his 2015 murder conviction in the 2013 death of Odin Lloyd as if it never happened.
Hernandez was found dead in his prison cell last month, just days after he was acquitted of the 2012 killings of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado. He was severing a mandatory life sentence for the previous murder conviction.
Now that the conviction has been wiped from his record, Hernandez’s family could file a lawsuit against the NFL and the New England Patriots for voiding his contract following his arrest.
Because Hernandez was technically not convicted of a crime, the termination of his contract may not have been legally performed. That could entitle the beneficiaries of Hernandez’s estate to monies owed to Hernandez.
