Former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez witnessed the murder of Odin Lloyd but wasn't the one who pulled the trigger, according to Hernandez's defense. Hernandez's lawyers painted him as a confused 23-year-old kid and indicated in Tuesday's closing arguments that one of Hernandez's jailed accomplices - Carlos Ortiz or Ernest Wallace - was responsible for Lloyd's death.
Hernandez's defense dropped a bit of a bombshell during their closing arguments Tuesday afternoon. According to his lawyers, Hernandez was in fact present when Lloyd was shot to death but had nothing to do with it. His lawyers went on to argue their client's behavior after the crime - from a surveillance video depicting him holding a firearm to him allegedly instructing his fiancée to get rid of a mysterious box - was the result of him being a young kid who didn't know what to do.
"Did he make all the right decisions? No," James Sultan, one of Hernandez's lawyers, said during his closing arguments Tuesday, according to ESPN. "He was a 23-year-old kid who witnessed something, a shocking killing, committed by someone he knew. He didn't know what to do, so he just put one foot in front of the other."
Sultan's defense of Hernandez essentially paints the ex-NFL star as an accomplice, at worst, to the crime and points the finger at somebody else - Ortiz or Wallace - as the triggerman. Hernandez, though, is being charged with first-degree murder, a charge that Sultan believes the prosecution failed to prove.
"The investigation done in this case was incomplete, biased and inept. That was not fair to Odin Lloyd, that was not fair to Aaron Hernandez, and it was not fair to you," he said. "All that effort and this is all they could come up with. What does that tell you?"
Because the prosecution chose to charge Hernandez with Murder-1, the defense only needs to create reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors as to whether Hernandez killed Lloyd. In other words, if the jury believes it's possible somebody else - such as Wallace or Ortiz - actually pulled the trigger, then it may be difficult for the jury to come back with a guilty verdict for first-degree murder.
Hernandez's fate is no in the hands of the jury, which began deliberations after the closing arguments on Tuesday. Hernandez, who's also waiting trial for a double homicide in 2012, faces life in prison if convicted for the murder of Lloyd.
