Attorneys for Aaron Hernandez may request bail again for their client during a Friday court appearance where he is also expected to be formally arraigned on murder and weapons charges, according to the Sporting News.
The 23-year-old former New England Patriots tight end is expected to plead not guilty to all the charges stemming from the June 17 execution-style slaying of one-time associate Odin Lloyd. Currently, he remains jailed without bail and relegated to solitary confinement.
"Usually, the consideration for bail is contingent on whether the defendant is a flight risk or a risk to the community,'' Anne Bowen Poulin, a former Assistant U.S. District Attorney in Chicago and current Villanova University law professor told the Sporting News. "The way I would argue it if I were the prosecution is that there are also these other investigations taking place that would render him a risk to the safety of the community," added Poulin, who received her undergraduate degree from Harvard. "Even if they haven't charged him with those yet, they can make an argument that there are crimes he may be connected with that require him to be kept in custody.''
Boston police continue to investigate Hernandez's possible involvement in an unsolved, 2012 double murder there and a federal civil suit has been filed against him in Florida, where a man alleges Hernandez shot him in the face while the two were leaving a strip club.
The gun used in the double homicide was recovered last month and police have also impounded a vehicle they believe to be connected to the crime from the garage of a man identified as Hernandez's uncle.
Prosecutors are not expected to formally charge Hernandez in either of those crimes on Friday, but Superior Court Judge Frances A. McIntyre could set a trial date in the Lloyd killing.
According to the Sporting News, in anticipation of a huge courtroom crowd the judge sent out a letter restricting the number of spectators, media and family and friends of both Lloyd and Hernandez allowed in the courtroom.
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