Noah Feldman, Columnist

Victims' Families Will Suffer for Aaron Hernandez's Suicide

How an obscure law upends the civil cases against the football star.

April 19, 2017 at 8:03 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Presumed innocent on a technicality.
Photographer: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

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After the prison suicide of former NFL player Aaron Hernandez on Wednesday, his conviction for murder, under appeal at the time of his death, is going to be reversed. This has nothing to do with Hernandez’s acquittal five days ago on separate murder charges. The reason is a fascinating and obscure doctrine known as “abatement ab initio.” Under Massachusetts law, a conviction that has not been finalized at the time of the defendant’s death is reversed back to the indictment “at the beginning” of the prosecution -- ab initio, in law Latin.

Legally speaking, the presumption of innocence therefore attaches to Hernandez. And that could have consequences for a range of purposes.