Aaron Hernandez trial: Defense and prosecution mock each other in closing arguments

FALL RIVER, Mass. – In a slow, calm, yet confident voice, defense attorney James Sultan paced back and forth in front of the jury here Tuesday morning and argued his client, Aaron Hernandez, was innocent of murder and mocked a prosecution case that was full of holes and rich with speculation.

"This is a court of law," Sultan said. "This isn't a mystery show."

The former New England Patriots star has banked on his high-profile legal team to beat the rap of his involvement in the June 17, 2013, early-morning killing of Odin Lloyd, who was found shot to death in an undeveloped piece of industrial property near Hernandez's home in North Attleboro, Mass.

He faces a mountain of strong, if circumstantial, evidence from the Commonwealth. So strong that Sultan was forced to all but admit critical points such as Hernandez's presence at the scene of the crime, that he may have been carrying a gun in home surveillance video taken minutes after the murder and that same gun may have been in a box that his fiancée removed from their home the following day.

"The defendant is guilty of killing Odin Lloyd," prosecutor William McCauley told the jury during his closing argument.

The result of the concessions was Sultan using much of an intense, 89 minute closing argument here in Bristol County Superior Court to pick on the weakest part of the prosecution's case, the lack of motive. He called Hernandez and Lloyd friends and fellow marijuana enthusiasts who spent lots of time together because they were dating sisters.

The prosecution tried to downplay the relationship across the lengthy trial, although it often floundered when coming up with a reason for the homicide.

"Were they friends?" Sultan asked. "Obviously they were friends. They were future brothers-in-law. The prosecution wants to deny the obvious."

"Were they friends?" McCauley shot back later during his 88-minute closing, noting a lack of phone contact and limited time spent together. "That's inconsistent with the evidence. … They weren't friends. There is no evidence they were friends."

For the defense, this was a territorial victory, however, as McCauley spent at least a half hour of his allotted 90 minutes on motive, which it doesn't have to legally prove and placed him mostly on the defensive.

Sultan, a high-profile Boston defense attorney, was measured and often scripted in his closing, yet without making it sound like he was reading prepared remarks. Hernandez got what his NFL millions could afford. McCauley, in contrast, was more emotional, meandering and frantic, almost like he couldn’t get the damning facts out fast enough. Later, Judge E. Susan Garsh had to clarify to the jury three separate points (all fairly minor) McCauley mistakenly made during his presentation.

The facts, though, are the facts and that is where the prosecution was at its best. McCauley did a fine job taking the jury through the timeline of the evening in question, from picking Lloyd up at his Dorchester (Mass.) home to arriving in the North Attleboro field near Hernandez's house.

McCauley used forensic evidence to allege Hernandez was the triggerman, detailing how fingerprints show Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz, friends of Hernandez, opened the rear passenger side door where Lloyd was seated. A shell casing inside the car was later found under the driver side seat, where Hernandez was. Five more were found outside, consistent with Hernandez's path around the car.

They then drove away, leaving evidence all over the place but expecting it wouldn't quickly be discovered due to its remote location.

"The perfect spot to kill somebody," McCauley said of the area called Corliss Landing. "No witnesses, other than the killers."

Sultan focused on the other two men at the scene, Wallace and Ortiz, two drug dealers who may have smoked marijuana laced with PCP in the days prior to the murder. Sultan said police wrongly identified Hernandez as the prime suspect almost immediately after the crime and then sought evidence to prove them correct rather than look into all three men. Hernandez was just an innocent bystander.

"He was a 23-year-old kid who witnessed something shocking – a killing committed by somebody he knew," Sultan argued.

"The investigation into this case was incomplete, biased and inept," Sultan said. "That was not fair to Odin Lloyd. That was not fair to Aaron Hernandez. … And that was not fair to you [because] this is all you have to work with."

Due to that and police incompetence, Sultan said almost all forensic evidence presented from the prosecution – from DNA on a shell casing, to footprints, to tire tread evidence – should be disregarded.

"They have relied on this courtroom to convict someone of murder," Sultan argued. "They would do whatever it took to accomplish their goal. That's not science; that's scary.

"And that is not beyond a reasonable doubt."

McCauley, however, made a mockery out of the suggestion that Hernandez was just an innocent bystander as Wallace, Ortiz or both flipped out on a drug-induced rage and killed Lloyd. It was Hernandez who drove the Nissan Altima that night, in full control of its movements.

He reminded the jury of home video from the next day that showed the three men casually hanging around Hernandez's home, lounging by the pool, having smoothies served to them by Hernandez's fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins. It even included footage of Hernandez handing, at different points of the day, his then 8-month old daughter to each man and then leaving the room.

The men are later seen inspecting the door where Lloyd got out and inspecting other damage to the car that McCauley suggested occurred when they tried earlier to stop somewhere else to kill Lloyd. Hernandez later rented the two a new car to drive back to Connecticut, although not before having his fiancée, with the daughter in the back seat, meet the two men at a McDonalds off an interstate at 1 a.m. to provide them money.

"This defendant has his 8-month infant and is handing her to Wallace, apparently the guy – the crazy man – who apparently killed Odin the day before?" McCauley asked incredulously. "Handing her to Wallace?"

"[Hernandez] facilitate[d] their escape after sitting around the pool, sharing smoothies, playing with [his] baby … fist bumps," McCauley railed. "[It's] inconsistent!"

"… Settle this case on the evidence," McCauley said. "Not, 'Oh yeah, there was a fox out there, maybe it was a fox hunter in the neighborhood; maybe he shot Odin Lloyd.' "

In many ways, Tuesday's closing arguments mirrored the entire case, which saw 135 witnesses (132 from the prosecution) on 40 days of testimony stretched across parts of 10 weeks.

The prosecution had evidence upon evidence, plus Massachusetts "joint venture" law, which requires no proof that Hernandez pulled the trigger, just that he was a willing participant in the crime.

Hernandez, meanwhile, had a world-class legal team that was aggressive yet never rattled and could smoothly argue its way out of all sorts of minor disputes.

All along Hernandez had the lawyers. The Commonwealth had the law.

What matters more to the jury of 10 women and five men, which will be pared down to 12 on Tuesday afternoon (three will be alternates) remains to be seen. Judge Garsh will give lengthy instructions later Tuesday, which will include the precise definition of joint venture, before they get the case. A decision could come later this week.

It was a tense scene in the fifth-floor courtroom here at the Fall River Justice Center, as the entire gallery was packed with family members, onlookers and media. The jury hung on each word as both sides took a turn.

Seated at opposite sides were sisters Shayanna Jenkins (Hernandez's fiancée) and Shaneah Jenkins (Lloyd's girlfriend), whose once close relationship is now estranged. As each side left for lunch and waited by a bank of elevators, Shaneah turned her back on Shayanna.

After each side poured through as much of the case as they could, assailing each other's witnesses and counter claims, they appealed to emotion and common sense.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is a terrible case," Sultan said. "This is about the tragic death, the violent murder of Odin Lloyd and another young man, an innocent man charged with that crime. Don't compound that tragedy with by convicting an innocent man.

"I ask you to find Aaron Hernandez not guilty of killing Odin Lloyd."

McCauley told them to follow the evidence at hand.

"Circumstantial evidence, yes," McCauley acknowledged. "There were no eyewitnesses. There was other evidence, strong evidence that should convince you beyond a reasonable doubt.

"If you do that," he concluded, "that verdict will be to find the defendant guilty, first-degree murder, of killing Odin Lloyd."