Aaron Hernandez lawyers seeking court-approved secrecy to investigate juror

FALL RIVER — Aaron Hernandez’s attorneys believe a juror in the former NFL star’s trial may have been exposed to “significant extraneous matter,” and they want to investigate that allegation under the cloak of court-approved secrecy.

A June 12 motion hearing has been scheduled at Bristol County Superior Court in Fall River to review the defense team’s request to seal two motions and accompanying documents related to the juror issue. Those documents are sealed at least until Judge E. Susan Garsh hears oral arguments next week. Prosecutors and any interested third parties have until June 10 to file opposition to the defense motion.

In their motion filed Wednesday, Hernandez’s attorneys, Michael K. Fee and James L. Sultan, say keeping the documents private is important because they disclose the juror’s identity, as well as the grounds for conducting a post-verdict inquiry of that unnamed juror on “several enumerated subjects.”

“Public disclosure of these documents prior to the convening of such an inquiry, if ordered by the court, would seriously compromise the integrity and effectiveness of the fact-finding process. The likelihood of discovering the truth in this matter will be maximized if the witnesses being questioned do not know in advance what the are going to be asked or the specific nature of the allegations which have been made,” Fee and Sultan said.

The two sealed defense motions include a request for a subpoena to determine a source of information provided to counsel and for the inquiry of the juror based on his or her exposure to “significant extraneous matter and related issues.” Also sealed for now is an affidavit Sultan wrote and a memorandum of law filed in support of the juror motion.

The court experienced some juror issues during the Hernandez trial, which began Jan. 29 and ended April 15, when the jury convicted the 25-year-old former New England Patriots tight end for first-degree murder stemming from the June 2013 fatal shooting of Odin Lloyd in North Attleborough.

During the trial, Garsh dismissed three jurors; two for undisclosed reasons and a third, a woman, who allegedly did not disclose during the prescreening process that she had discussed the case and attended Patriots home games at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro.

Before the trial, Hernandez’s attorneys expressed concerns about the jury pool in Bristol County being tainted because of the intense media coverage surrounding the case. They requested a change of venue and hired a polling company to make their case that a majority of residents in the county believed Hernandez was guilty, but Garsh decided to keep the trial in Bristol County.

Throughout the trial, and during a joint interview with reporters after the verdict, the jurors said they had abided by the judge’s instructions not to read about or discuss the case. They also said that they did not learn several key details that Garsh did not allow at trial — such as allegations that Hernandez shot his best friend two years ago in Florida and the contents of Lloyd’s text messages to his sister just before his death — until the judge told them after the trial ended.

Hernandez, who is also awaiting trial in Suffolk County for his alleged role in a 2012 double homicide in Boston, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley. His attorneys are appealing the conviction. In a motion filed last month requesting that Garsh overturn his conviction, Hernandez’s attorneys suggested the jury relied on “improper speculation, conjecture and guesswork” to convict Hernandez. Garsh has not ruled on that motion.