Under a long-standing Massachusetts legal principle, courts customarily vacate the convictions of defendants who die before their appeals are heard. Massachusetts prison officials said Hernandez was found hanging in his prison cell early Wednesday. Hernandez's attorneys can move to have the conviction in the Lloyd case erased, said Martin Healy, chief legal counsel for the Massachusetts Bar Association. All first-degree murder convictions in Massachusetts trigger an automatic appeal. Gregg Miliote, a spokesman for the district attorney's office which prosecuted the Lloyd case, would not comment on the possibility of the conviction being vacated.

Source: New Zealand Herald April 19, 2017 14:33 UTC