Was Roberto Clemente black?

He had some African ancestry, so by the census definition of "black", he'd be part-black, yes.

nice bit of trivia there. why is that?

Pgm was joking

Because the constitution requries the testimony of two witnesses before a conviction of treason can be obtained

oh cool, i thought it was more complicated than being written directly onto the constitution.

I don't think this is going to actually make it to trial, but I'd guess the alternate theory would be conceding involvement to lesser charges and trying to say he was somewhere between an accessory and guilty of voluntary manslaughter.

No way the prosecutor is going to offer that kind of plea deal. The prosecutor sees this as a PR bonanza and so aren't likely to give him anything except maybe a slightly lesser sentence for fully admitting to the crime.

They appear to have him on the elements of murder. I'm not sure they have him on the elements of first degree murder. First degree murder requires an extra element of "malice aforethought" or other special circumstances in Massachusetts above regular murder. They may have those and they may not, but I don't see a slam dunk to upgrade it from the lesser included from the charging statement, which means that it's something for the defense to shoot for in plea negotiations. The law in Massachusetts says:

Section 1. Murder committed with deliberately premeditated malice aforethought, or with extreme atrocity or cruelty, or in the commission or attempted commission of a crime punishable with death or imprisonment for life, is murder in the first degree.

Malice aforethought is not terribly easy to prove in a case like this. I wouldn't be super-shocked if he pleads out to second degree murder, first degree murder isn't terribly easy to make stick. While every new detail seems to put him towards prison, there's two other dudes involved, so there's a pretty good chance Hernandez will be able to buy or otherwise leverage one or both of them off into taking the fall. What would it take for somebody to voluntarily take a 25-life when they didn't have to? Usually a whole lot of money or organized crime influences, both of which are possibilities here. I mean, Hernandez did a really shitty job covering his tracks here, but it still takes good and honest police work to uncover those tracks and put everything together, and there is a lot of bad or dishonest police work going on, especially when you bring the popular rich local athlete angle in.

Cool, that's what I thought (about him being dead to rights). As for the rest, it is aggravating then that people use that term as they do.

Malice aforethought is not that hard to prove. Basically did he deliberately plan killing someone and did he do it with malice (which is basically impossible to avoid in a premeditated killing). In fact the term originally meant premeditated killing. Btw they still can get Hernandez on the first degree charge even if he didn't pull the trigger. If he had one of his friends do it there might still be enough to convict him even if one of the friends says he forced Hernandez to come along or something ridiculous (if 3 of us go out and pick someone up and take him to a secluded spot with the intention of shooting him, then that's first degree for everyone there). Another thing to keep in mind is that Hernandez is the one with the beef against the victim not his friends (who he called in). That makes it unlikely that a lying witness could extricate him from the scenario. If one of his buddies all the sudden has a bunch of money added to his account someone will notice. Same thing with the gang stuff (and Hernandez ain't likely to be a serious gangbanger). And all it takes is the state having another guy who doesn't want to do time to nab him. The prosecution might budge for a murder 2 but I think they'd prefer the profile.

Incidentally Massachusetts should get with the fucking program and upgrade their fucking criminal code to remove the confusing phrase malice aforethought.

I don't think "premeditated malice aforethought" is as difficult to prove as you're making it out to be. They got in the car deliberately to pick Lloyd up and took him straight to a secluded area. If the intent the whole time was to murder him, that is "malicious aforethought," if my understanding of the language is correct (certainly you could fit that chain of events into line with the language quite easily).

As the story goes, from my understanding so far, two of the men (Hernandez + 1) got out of the car with Lloyd. The third has said that he doesn't know which man shot Lloyd, but that it was indeed because Hernandez was upset with him for talking to certain people*. I think it's much more likely that the other two cooperate and let Hernandez take the fall rather than take the fall for Hernandez. Also I don't know what you're referencing when you say "bad and dishonest police work." If you're not referring to this case specifically then I don't think that's fair (or fairly assumable).

*If any of the other shooting cases that might involve Hernandez actually do turn out to involve Hernandez, than I don't think this is as unlikely as it seems right now.

I don't have a thorough knowledge of criminal law, but, from what I've noticed from other high profile cases especially, when the investigation and evidence gathering moves that smooth and swiftly, they've found their killer.

@ Eric, the poi that stayed in the car was told by the guy who went with Hernandez that Hernandez fired the shots. Hernandez shouldn't be able to beat this.

Because of the quasi-familial relationship, an easy method would be to imply that Lloyd was abusing his girlfriend, or better yet, Hernandez's girlfriend. Another one would be trying to portray Lloyd as a threat to Hernandez.

Remember, the defense doesn't need to actually prove anything, they just have to create some reasonable doubt in that element, which can often be as easy as letting one or two jurors' imaginations run wild. If we're assuming that they have a loser on the homicide generally, they can throw all kinds of hails mary to get it knocked down to a version of homicide that actually has a parole possibility.

That's similar to what Sandusky did and it worked out terrible for him.