Most people don’t get off so easily if they fail to appear in court, but most people aren’t Bill Belichick.
The defense in Aaron Hernandez’s double murder trial wanted to call the New England Patriots head coach to the stand, as Belichick drafted the former tight end and coached him until Hernandez was arrested in 2013 for another murder, for which he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. And while Belichick didn’t go out of his way to avoid being subpoenaed, he wound up getting pretty lucky regardless.
Belichick lives in a golf course community around the Black Rock Country Club in Hingham, Mass., per Yahoo! Sports, so Hernandez’s lawyer Jose Baez had a tough time getting his people onto the property to deliver the subpoena. In fact, Belichick didn’t end up getting it until the final day of the trial, giving him less than 24 hours notice to get to court. So when he didn’t show up, Baez gave him a pass.
“The community in which he lived, our officer was not able to get in numerous times,” Baez told Suffolk County Judge Jeffrey Locke on Thursday, via Yahoo! Sports. “So we made a strategic decision to release him from service.”
Baez said he “didn’t think (Belichick’s) testimony was critical to the defense,” so Judge Locke took him at his word and relieved Belichick from his responsibility to appear.
It’s not surprising that Baez and the defense didn’t feel the need to hear from Belichick, who most likely would have been a character witness. There’s no evidence Belichick ever knew about the murders or Hernandez’s involvement, so his testimony probably wouldn’t have included anything too earth-shattering or helpful to the defense.
Thumbnail photo via Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports Images
