Last week, it was discovered that deceased 27-year-old NFL player and convicted murderer, Aaron Hernandez, suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy. C.T.E. is a severe form of degenerative brain disease. Not only did Hernandez have C.T.E, but according to The New York Times, he had a critical case, Stage 3, which is uncommon  in young people. C.T.E can only be diagnosed through a postmortem examination of the brain, which is what happened with Hernandez. While it is suspected a football player may be struggling with C.T.E. when he has uncontrollable mood swings, acts out or is lacking impulse control, doctors cannot confirm it while the player is alive. That being said, C.T.E. cannot be used as a criminal defense, or can it?

Hernandez was in prison for the 2012 double homicide of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, but he was acquitted after a 2017 trial. However, he was also arrested for the murder of Odin Lloyd, a semi-professional player who was dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancée.

Hernandez hanged himself before his appeal and Superior Court Judge Susan Garsh vacated Hernandez’s first-degree murder conviction. According to Boston Globe, state prosecutors are “vowing to fight the decision all the way to the state’s highest court.” The issue at hand is that since Hernandez is technically innocent, his daughter and fiancée now have access to all of his money and assets. Although Lloyd’s mother is still confident that Hernandez is guilty, Hernandez has evidence on his side.

According to The New York Times,  Boston University scientists published, in The Journal of the American Medical Association, “the results of a study of 111 brains donated by the families of deceased NFL players. All but one had C.T.E.”

If this is taken to higher courts, Hernandez has science working in his favor. Under the Massachusetts formulation of the insanity defense, Hernandez’s defense could rightfully argue that when he killed Lloyd, he was undergoing a mental defect that made him unable to behave according to the law. Evidence of C.T.E. has created a reasonable doubt about his criminal responsibility. The Boston University study was, unfortunately, published too late to save Hernandez, but it shines light on the impulse control issues of some professional football players.

Aaron Hernandez should have been receiving treatment in a hospital for his critical brain injury, but instead, he is dead. Suicide is merely another side effect of C.T.E. Because of the discovered disease of C.T.E., it can be asserted that athlete Aaron Hernandez should not have been convicted of first-degree murder and was not entirely to blame.

Photo by Jeffrey Beall via flickr