Prosecutors Seek to Keep Drug Expert from Testifying in Aaron Hernandez Case

A motion filed this week seeks to prevent drug expert David Greenblatt from testifying

Prosecutors filed a motion this week seeking to prevent a drug expert from testifying at the murder trial of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, arguing that drug use is not relevant to the case.

The prosecution's motion, filed Tuesday, seeks to exclude testimony from Dr. David Greenblatt, who is expected to testify "regarding the effects of PCP and/or Marijuana on the human brain and human behavior." The motion says Hernandez's lawyers have supplied no reports of examination or any findings of Greenblatt that would suggest PCP is "in any way relevant to this case" and thus he shouldn't be allowed to testify.

Hernandez is scheduled to go on trial next week for the killing of Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player whose bullet-riddled body was found in an industrial park about a mile from Hernandez's North Attleborough home in June of 2013.

Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to Lloyd's murder. He has also pleaded not guilty to the fatal shootings of two men in 2012 after an encounter at a Boston nightclub.

Prosecutors said in their motion that there will be no evidence of the use of PCP by any defendant on the date of Lloyd's murder, though co-defendants Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz were allegedly observed smoking PCP approximately 27 hours before the murder.

The motion said the defense is "deliberately" keeping prosecutors "in the dark" so that its expert can attribute "certain murderous behaviors to ingestation of PCP where there is no evidence that such drug was consumed close enough in time to be relevant given that there will be no direct evidence of either Wallace or Ortiz acting in a manner consistent with the effects of PCP."

The prosecution goes on to say that it objects to the effort by the defense to suggest that the use of PCP explains the killing of Lloyd. "In point of fact, the defense seeks to mislead the jury by raising the bogey man of the illicit use of PCP without being able to show how it in any way has relevance to the events of the murder."

Also filed this week by prosecutors was a motion asking the judge to allow testimony that Hernandez owned a gun similar to the one that was used to kill Lloyd. Prosecutors allegedly told a friend weeks before Lloyd's death that he owned a .45 caliber pistol, the same type of weapon that was used to kill Lloyd.

Another motion filed by the prosecution this week asks that the jury be allowed to view 13 locations considered relevant to the trial. The locations include several cell towers and other areas connected to the murder in North Attleborough, South Attleborough, Foxborough, Canton, Weston, and Boston, Massachusetts. 

Hernandez's final pre-trial hearing in the Lloyd killing is scheduled for Jan. 6 in Bristol County Superior Court. Jury selection begins Jan. 9. Prosecutors said they expect jury selection to take until about Jan. 20.

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