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Legal Analyst: Hernandez suicide likely to affect Lloyd murder conviction

BOSTON — Aaron Hernandez’s prison suicide is likely going to affect his previous murder conviction, a legal analyst told FOX25 Tuesday morning.

Hernandez, who was convicted in the 2013 killing of Odin Lloyd and just days ago acquitted of killing two men in the South End in 2012, was found hanging in his prison cell early Wednesday morning.

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He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead an hour later.

Now his death is likely going to affect his murder conviction.

“I know that’s going to be hard for a lot of people to swallow but if you die during an appeal in Massachusetts, the appeal of a criminal case, the conviction is vacated,” Legal analyst Peter Elikann said on FOX25 News.

Hernandez was in the process of appealing his murder conviction, which came with a life sentence with no possibility of parole.

“Clearly it’s a very, very narrow legal technicality,” Elikann said. “It’s not like you’ve been vindicated or people now realize you weren’t guilty or anything.”

He said everyone has the right to appeal and now Hernandez doesn’t have a way to exercise that right to appeal.

“Who knows if your conviction would have ultimately been vacated from the appeal,” he said. “So the idea is that since he doesn’t have the opportunity to appeal we’re not going to hold the conviction on you. And that’s how they look at it in Massachusetts law.”