As the prosecution closes in on resting its case against former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, a man whom Hernandez allegedly shot in the face testified on Wednesday. But Alexander Bradley wasn’t allowed to explain that he’d been shot in the face.
That’s because the legal system has concluded that evidence of other bad acts by Hernandez can’t be introduced into evidence in the case regarding the shooting death of Odin Lloyd, since neither the alleged shooting of Bradley nor the alleged double murder of two men in Boston in July 2012 have an appropriate connection to the Lloyd murder. The prosecution tried earlier in the trial to argue that Bradley should be able to talk about the time Hernandez allegedly shot him, because the defense had been suggesting that Lloyd and Hernandez were friends and Hernandez doesn’t shoot his friends. Bradley and Hernandez also were friends, but that didn’t stop Hernandez from shooting Bradley, allegedly.
And so Bradley, whose face is disfigured as a result of the shooting, testified without the jury knowing that Bradley got that way thanks to a bullet from a gun fired by Hernandez, allegedly.
Of course, this doesn’t mean the jurors don’t know about the Bradley shooting. The jury isn’t sequestered, which means that the jurors can Google “Aaron Hernandez” all night and all weekend long from their own homes.
What’s that, you say? The judge has ordered the jurors not to conduct any Internet research about the case? The judge also has ordered them not to come to any conclusions about Hernandez’s guilt or innocence, but they each surely violated that one a long time ago.
Even without testimony about being shot by Hernandez, Bradley had some relevant information to offer, as explained by Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports. For example, Bradley said he saw Hernandez with a Glock semi-automatic pistol a few months before the Lloyd murder; Lloyd allegedly was shot by a Glock semi-automatic pistol. Also, Bradley testified that Hernandez had a “lock box, a safe” in his basement, in which Hernandez kept a gun, cash, and marijuana blunts. Police didn’t find the item when searching Hernandez’s home, which sets the stage for an argument that this is the item Hernandez’s fiancée disposed of at his direction.
It’s not the last time Hernandez will have to hear testimony from Bradley. Per Wetzel, Bradley is expected to provide eyewitness testimony regarding the shooting deaths of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in July 2012.