The witness list for ex-New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez's murder trial regarding the shooting death of former associate Odin Lloyd has been released, and many names familiar to football fans are on it.
The biggest names on the list of people who may have to take the stand are Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and Hernandez's former head coach Bill Belichick. Other football-related names are Bills linebacker Brandon Spikes, who was a teammate of Hernandez with the Patriots and on the Florida Gators in college, and Dolphins center Mike Pouncey, who also teamed with Hernandez on the Gators.
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The Hartford Courant reported that Hernandez's defense team also plans on calling an expert on marijuana and PCP effects to the stand. In total there are 300 witnesses on the list. Jury selection is slated to begin on January 9.
Hernandez's lawyers believe that the length of the list is a tactic, however, to muddy the their ability to prepare for who is taking the stand.
"That list, which contains more than 300 names, is of little help to us since you failed to identify which of these hundreds and hundreds of witnesses you actually intend to call to testify at trial," Charles Rankin said.
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The witness list is a window into the magnitude of this case, which is why Hernandez's attorneys requested that a separate double-homicide case, in which Hernandez is accused of gunning down two men in a drive-by shooting, be pushed back six months.
Hernandez allegedly waited outside a Boston nightclub until Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado left, then pulled up alongside them as they waited for a red light and opened fire. They were believed to have been in an altercation with Hernandez at the club after accidentally spilling a drink on him; Hernandez had been feeling increasingly "disrespected" on the Boston nightclub scene.
The delay was requested so his legal team could focus all their energy on defending him in the Lloyd murder, then making a case in the double-murder once the Lloyd case had ended.
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