TV crew's action leads to threat of mistrial in Aaron Hernandez case
FALL RIVER, Mass. – Two jurors determining the fate of Aaron Hernandez told Bristol County Superior Court Judge E. Susan Garsh that a Boston television station van was present at their parking lot Wednesday night and approached jury vehicles, an act that violates Massachusetts’ law.
Both jurors – one male, one female – remained on the jury, which entered its second full day of deliberations on whether Hernandez murdered Odin Lloyd in the early morning hours of June 17, 2013.
Hernandez is a former star player for the New England Patriots and as such the case has attracted major media attention.
"It was one person in the vehicle; it was in the parking lot,” Garsh explained later of a van she identified as belonging to WHDH-TV, the NBC affiliate in Boston. "It slowed down as jurors were pulling out. It was looking at the jurors [in a way] the jurors deemed inappropriate."
Jurors park or get dropped off at a parking lot away from the Fall River Justice Center and then are transported to the courthouse in a van. It is an effort to protect them from outside influences whether it's the media, families on either side of the trial or the general public following the case.
There is no reason for a media member to be at that location.
Garsh held individual meetings with the two jurors, but had white noise piped through the courtroom so the public and media could not hear. The male juror brought a cell phone with him. Garsh later explained he had taken a photograph of the television van’s license plate.
Each juror was brought in a second time later in the morning and again questioned by Garsh, the attorneys and Hernandez.
Garsh then demanded a hearing at 12:15 p.m. ET, where either the driver of the vehicle appears before her under oath or someone from WHDH management who will assert as to why the driver acted as he did.
In a statement read at the top of their noon newscast, WHDH denied they approached, spoke to or photographed any jurors.