On Friday, Judge E. Susan Garsh denied an effort to dismiss the Odin Lloyd murder charge currently pending against former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez. On Monday, Hernandez’s lawyers will begin presenting his formal defense.
Via Elizabeth Barber of Reuters, the defense’s case may not last long. Per Barber, the first witness could be Dr. David Greenblatt, an expert witness who will offer testimony about PCP. It’s possible that Hernandez’s lawyers will attempt to pin the murder on the other two men in the car with Hernandez and Lloyd, Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace, claiming that they were under the influence of PCP.
The challenge will be proving that either of the men had taken PCP, unless one or more of the people called in the prosecution’s 120-witness case-in-chief testified that they did.
Judge Garsh has determined that the parties will have 90 minutes to present their closing arguments, which could begin on Tuesday. The prosecution will slice its presentation into two parts, pushing as much as possible into what amounts to the last word.
Appearing on Friday’s PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio, Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports said that the most damning piece of evidence to date came via surveillance video of Hernandez carrying in his house following the murder what appears to be a gun. An expert witness has testified that it was a Glock semi-automatic pistol, the murder weapon that has still not been recovered -- and that may have been in the box that Hernandez’s fiancée disposed of at Hernandez’s direction.