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Hernandez Guilty of First Degree Murder. Aired 10:30-11a ET
Aired April 15, 2015 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDGE E. SUSAN GARSH, BRISTOL CO, MASSACHUSETTS: I strongly urge but do not order you to keep the contents of the jury's deliberations private and confidential and not to discuss what anyone in the jury room may have said. I'll be back to talk to you a little more informally in a few moments.
Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All rise.
[10:30:06] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. As you heard: Aaron Hernandez guilty of all counts but that most important guilty verdict coming down on the first-degree murder charge. That means Aaron Hernandez could spend the rest of his life in jail. Paul Callan is joining us. When will the sentencing phase be -- Paul?
PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, there will be a slight delay before sentence is handed down in Massachusetts. However, in this case because extreme cruelty was one of the findings in connection with the first-degree murder case, we know what the sentence is going to be. It's going to be life without parole. The most severe sentence permitted under Massachusetts law.
COSTELLO: And just some color from inside the courtroom because Susan Candiotti is inside and she's been tweeting from inside. She said Odin Lloyd's mother as those guilty verdicts were read, she was crying and then she pumped her fist several times as if to say "I'm so relieved that this turned out this way."
As for Aaron Hernandez's family, his mother was inside the courtroom along with his fiancee and you saw them there just breaking down and sobbing at this verdict. Aaron Hernandez appeared at times to turn toward his fiancee and look at her through all of this. Jean are you surprised?
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: You know, with the length of deliberation, I thought it could go either way. But it's very interesting. Now, this judge has the option to go straight into sentencing and we understand she may do that with victim impact statements. And as Paul said, there's really no alternative for the sentence. It's life in prison behind bars now for the rest of his life.
It looks like she's taking a break. But I think if we look at facts for a second, this jury believed that this was a premeditated murder by Aaron Hernandez and all the phone calls, all the texts on that evening and that day of Father's Day were because he was wanting to get together with Odin Lloyd.
He drove the car. They drive into an industrial park. There's no bar open. There's no place they can go when they pick him up at 2:30 in the morning. So the jury had to believe that that intent was for a murder, to do a crime to him.
And maybe they didn't have the motive but maybe they, through the evidence, could gather circumstantially a motive. And as we talked about --
(CROSSTALK)
COSTELLO: What was kind of a surprise to me, he was found guilty of possession of a firearm. There was always that seed of doubt, Danny, that Aaron Hernandez wasn't holding a gun and was taken by surveillance cameras from inside of his house. His lawyer said it was an iPad. Obviously, the jury didn't believe that.
DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: No, they didn't. And what better evidence do you have of possession of a firearm than video of somebody possessing what a Glock expert says is a firearm. Believe me, the law of firearm possession allows a conviction on much lesser quantum of evidence than a video of somebody holding what appears to be a firearm.
You can be convicted of a firearm often when no firearm is ever even found or even if there's no video at all. So that's not much of a surprise to me. The jury had to make a fact determination and they exercised their power to do just that.
COSTELLO: Mel Robbins, I just got word that the judge is going to sentence Hernandez in just about 20 minutes. Will it be a pretty quick process?
MEL ROBBINS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It will be a very quick process. As Paul already mentioned in the state of Massachusetts, she has little leeway. There's a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole. You could see Odin Lloyd's family take the stand and give impact statements. But they're not going to make much of a difference because they can't make a difference.
What I find interesting about this verdict because so many of us were thinking that this would be a hung jury is that at the end of the day -- at the end of the day, the jury looked at the facts and they made a determination based on the facts and the law and it is the correct determination.
And there were many of us that were worried based on the fact that motive was very sketchy in this case. The judge could not -- would not allow in prior information about why Hernandez was upset with Odin Lloyd. The judge also, if you recall, originally wasn't going to let in the text message that Odin Lloyd sent just before he was killed to his sister saying that by the way NFL. And when she did let it she didn't let anybody expound on the fact of what it might mean.
This also indicates that they didn't buy anything that Hernandez's fiancee said. When she took the stand and said she thought that the box contained weed and she couldn't quite remember where she threw the box out and the box that I'm referring to, of course, is the one that the prosecutors allege contained the gun, the murder weapon that he was getting rid of. Clearly they didn't believe her.
And so I feel a great sense of relief based on this verdict because I was extremely worried based on some of the limitations that were given to the prosecution that the jury would struggle and that they were in fact struggling with reaching the correct verdict in this case. And murder one certainly absolutely murder two is the correct verdict as far as I'm concerned.
[10:35:08] COSTELLO: Yes. I'm just looking at the pictures of Aaron Hernandez sitting there handcuffed and deputy sheriffs surrounding him. I would assume they are doing that -- I would assume they're doing that, Paul, because you never know what Aaron Hernandez could do after such a verdict is read in court.
CALLAN: This is always the most solemn scene in a courtroom. And I know Danny has seen it as well. When that conviction is announced, the court officers surround the defendant even if he's already in custody. Now there's even more of a chance that --
CASAREZ: Normally it's before the verdict is announced.
CALLAN: Yes, that's right.
CEVALLOS: Yes. You can feel them creeping up behind. It's really unnerving.
CALLAN: Yes. And then if he's out an bail, cuffs go on and he goes through a side door, never to be seen. I mean it's just -- it's a solemn moment.
But, you know, following up on something that Mel said. There are a lot of lawyers who were following the case who were predicting hung jury. As a matter of fact, I reluctantly fell into that camp myself yesterday until I had an opportunity to speak to our reporter on the scene, Susan Candiotti, about what was going on with the jury. And she told me some very interesting things.
COSTELLO: Actually, it's interesting you bring up Susan because she's now been able to leave the courthouse.
CALLAN: Excellent.
COSTELLO: So let's go back to Fall River, Massachusetts and get the latest from Susan Candiotti. Tell us more, Susan. Tell us what you got.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, I think this is one of the most dramatic verdicts that I have ever been able to witness. You could hear a pin drop in the room watching all the faces and at that moment when the all guilty verdicts were read, the mother of the victim in this case Ursula Ward looked up, looked down and fist -- made a fist with her arms as though to say "thank you". And at that exact same moment the fiancee and the mother of Aaron Hernandez were openly weeping in court holding onto each other. Aaron Hernandez looking back at them and mouthing the words "be strong, it's ok" at various intervals. Himself, listening to the jury being polled taking deep breaths and letting it out. And looking certainly the most serious I have ever seen him look during the course of this entire trial that began back in January.
I will say this. One of the good friends of the victim in this case, I remember said these words to me. "Even if we get justice, do we really win? I don't think so." That's what he said, his words -- a direct quote from him meaning that he's lost his friend no matter what.
A very dramatic day and now comes the sentencing. It happens that quickly here, which will be preceded by victim impact statements that will be read by the victim's mother, Ursula Ward. We are expected also to hear from his girlfriend and from his uncle -- all, of course, very close to him. What a dramatic scene.
COSTELLO: It's just eerie to think that Odin Lloyd's girlfriend is Aaron Hernandez's fiancee's sister.
CANDIOTTI: Exactly. They are estranged from each other, the two sisters. The fiancee of Aaron Hernandez sitting in court openly weeping and holding onto his mother, but the two sisters have not spoken nearly since the start throughout the trial in the past year and a half always have sat on opposite sides.
The fiancee in this case even taking the stand with immunity testifying for the prosecution. But she didn't do him many favors and helped the state actually by saying that he ordered her to take a box out of the basement, which was always believed to be the murder weapon, which remains missing in this case.
Evidently that wasn't enough to sway this jury. They found him guilty on all counts. Those who suggested that perhaps because there was no clear motive presented by the state in this case, that you didn't really recover a murder weapon and couldn't exactly put it in his hands for sure at the scene, evidently the jury either believed that he himself shot Odin Lloyd or directed someone who was with him, the two co-defendants who will be tried separately. Perhaps they did it.
Perhaps we will find the answers to all of those questions if and when we have a chance to speak with the jury.
COSTELLO: Ok. Again, if you are just joining us this morning -- Aaron Hernandez guilty on all counts in the murder of Odin Lloyd. I want to play for you video of the moment that those verdicts came in, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Madame foreperson -- on indictment 2013-983-a, charging the defendant Aaron Hernandez with murder, what say you, Madame foreperson? Is the defendant not guilty, guilty of murder in the first degree, or guilty of murder in the second degree?
[10:40:09] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Guilty of murder in the first degree.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Madame foreperson, by which theory or theories, deliberate premeditation and/or extreme atrocity or cruelty?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Extreme atrocity or cruelty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Indictment 2013-983-b, charging the defendant, Aaron Hernandez, with unlawful possession of a firearm while not at home or work, what say you, Madame foreperson? Is the defendant not guilty or guilty?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Guilty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Indictment 2013-983-c, charging the defendant Aaron Hernandez with unlawful possession of ammunition, what say you Madame foreperson? Is the defendant not guilty or guilty?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Guilty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your honor, may the jury be polled on count 1 pursuant to (inaudible)?
GARSH: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Juror in seat 1, is the verdict on indictment 2013-983-a as announced by the foreperson, your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Juror in seat three, is the verdict as announced by the foreperson your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Madame foreperson, is the verdict you announced your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Juror in seat number seven, is the verdict as announced by the foreperson your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Juror in seat number eight, is the verdict as announced by the foreperson your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Juror in seat number nine, is the verdict as announced by the foreperson your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Juror in seat number 10, is the verdict as announced by the foreperson your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Juror in seat 13 is the verdict as announced by the foreperson your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Juror in seat number 14, is the verdict as announced by the foreperson your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Juror in seat 15, is the verdict as announced by the foreperson your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Juror in seat 16, is the verdict as announced about by the foreperson your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Juror in seat 18, is the verdict as announced about by the foreperson your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be seated please, jurors.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible)
May the verdicts be recorded?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They may.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: All right. You heard it for yourself. Aaron Hernandez -- guilty of all charges.
Let's head back to the courthouse and check in with Susan Candiotti. As the jurors were answering the judge and saying they agreed to these guilty verdicts, what was it like looking in their faces? I mean did they show emotion? Describe to us what that was like.
CANDIOTTI: You know, they did not. And as they walked into the courtroom, none of the jurors looked at Aaron Hernandez. I have to tell you, they never looked at him during the course of the trial either. And this day was no different. They looked straight ahead. You often hear if you make eye contact that might have boded well for him. They did not.
They stood there as each as the verdict was announced and as each person was polled. Some of them glanced over to the family as they have been doing throughout. If they glanced over at Aaron Hernandez, I wasn't able to see that.
For his part, for the first time, Carol, it looked to me as though Aaron Hernandez had had the wind knocked out of him. This was as somber as I have ever seen him. Each day as he has walked in and out of this courtroom, he walked with a swagger and a strut. Not this day.
He stood at attention and then he sat with one of his lawyers kept his arm on his back to try to comfort him. But he looked like I had never seen him look before. The family, his mother and his fiancee, openly weeping in this courtroom and still were when he walked out of the court as well.
And the victim's family crying, comforting each other, were in fact consoled and in fact congratulated by the prosecutors as they walked out of the courtroom. As we now wait for the all important next stage.
I'm going to be going back into the courtroom now to be in place for that as victim impact statements are read and then the judge will announce her sentence and there's no mystery here. It's mandatory for premeditated murder. He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. It's a mandatory sentence in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
COSTELLO: All right -- Susan. We'll let you get back inside that courtroom. Thank you very much for a job well done.
And Paul, just explain for our audience why there's no death penalty in this case and there is a death penalty possibility in the Tsarnaev case.
[10:45:05] CALLAN: Massachusetts, this case is being tried in superior court of Massachusetts. It's the local state court. And the people of Massachusetts and the courts in Massachusetts have decided no death penalty. The most severe sentence for murder in Massachusetts is life without parole.
Now, the Tsarnaev case, the Boston bombing case, is being tried in federal court and under federal law, the death penalty can be imposed on a variety of offenses. And even though Massachusetts citizens will actually sit on that jury, federal law is applied and the death penalty is a possibility in that case.
COSTELLO: Ok. Thank you for clarifying. So everybody understands what's going down. So the jury obviously won't have any part in the sentencing phase of the Hernandez trial.
CASAREZ: Here's what we understand and this comes from Susan's reporting. The jury is actually going to sit in the jury room while the judge does the sentencing procedure and sentences him. She will then go in and talk with the jury as we heard her say on the stand that she wanted to speak with them. So they'll wait in the back while this next hearing takes place.
COSTELLO: I'm sorry, what was that again? My producer is talking to me. Ok. All right. So you can see the microphones set up outside the courthouse. I would assume that reporters are awaiting the lawyers in this case to come out and make a statement especially the prosecutors. I don't know that defense attorneys will feel much like talking, right.
We also understand that there is a separate room set up for the jurors to talk if they want to talk to the press. And it was interesting to me, Danny. The judge when all was said and done inside the courtroom, when business was done, she turned to the jurors and says you have a right to talk to the media. And if you don't want to talk to the media, you don't have to. But we're providing this forum for you to do that.
CEVALLOS: Not only that she said I am asking you but not ordering you to keep your deliberations confidential. She doesn't really have the power to order it at this point now that the trial is over. But she certainly can ask nicely. Whether or not the jurors will take that into account -- who knows?
It's also interesting, too, you saw them poll the jury. I don't know, Paul, if that experience is agonizing after a guilty verdict. You poll the jury on the million of a millionth chance that one of them that the verdict was against one of their opinion. You could see the agony as they march through each of those jurors and they had to say out loud in open court almost testing their resolve -- was this really your verdict. Yes it was.
COSTELLO: Has it ever happened in --
CEVALLOS: Rarely. It does happen and exceedingly rarely. But when it does, it's that lottery ticket for a defendant. It's very, very rare.
CALLAN: Well, it's not quite a lottery ticket in the sense that he doesn't get a ticket out of jail because what the judge does and I've seen it happen where one juror says, hesitates a little bit, doesn't vote yes. They go back into the jury room and they continue the deliberations.
And I can tell you the other 11 beat up the one and they are unanimous then in about an hour and they come back out. I've never seen a case actually reversed on that basis. I've seen it delayed.
COSTELLO: So once the judge hands down the sentence for Aaron Hernandez, it's not really over for him.
CASAREZ: It's not because he's been charged with a double murder in Boston which could not come into this trial. You know, we talk about motive and there was not motive. There was something that came before the jury. "I showed Odin Lloyd the spot." But the jurors in this case weren't able to find what the spot was that Odin Lloyd had knowledge. Some believe that was the spot where allegedly the double murder took place and allegedly provided the motive for killing Odin Lloyd.
So he will now face that double murder in the Boston area. So he won't be carted off to prison.
COSTELLO: Interesting. So of course, as the sentencing phase begins, there will be witness impact statements. Those will come from Odin Lloyd's mother, his sister and his uncle.
CASAREZ: It will be very emotional.
COSTELLO: I'm sure they'll be very emotional. Is Mel Robbins still around?
ROBBINS: Yes.
COSTELLO: So Mel, I wanted to ask you about that. If we know what the sentence is going to be, why are those witness impact statements necessary?
ROBBINS: Well, it's not necessarily a question of whether they're necessary, Carol, as much as they are part of the process. So when you have a trial like this and you have the criminal justice system do its thing and have the defendant have his day in court and you have the prosecution under our laws have to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, you give a chance to the victims to actually speak out and weigh in.
It's not only because in many cases there aren't mandatory sentencing guidelines. And so those witness impact statements have an enormous impact. We're going to see witness impact statements in the Tsarnaev, the Boston bombing trial and you know, one of the things that the prosecution has done in that case is they have reserved some of the most gut-wrenching testimony for that aspect of the trial in the Boston bombing case.
[10:50:04] You're going to hear from Martin Richards' mother. You're going to hear from the amputees in that section of the trial. They saved them for that part of the trial.
But in this case, you're giving victims a chance to have their day in court and to hopefully -- you know, if there was an instance where the judge would be swayed, you give the victims a chance to sway the judge and weigh in, in that respect on the sentencing. But in this case, as my colleagues have already mentioned, this is a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole because he was convicted of murder one due to the cruelty of the crime -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. I'm just watching these live pictures from outside of the courthouse trying to figure out what we're seeing. I swore I saw Aaron Hernandez's fiancee in the middle of that huge crowd of reporters and then they got into that white van and drove away. But I also -- go ahead.
(CROSSTALK)
COSTELLO: I wouldn't be Paul has passed me a vital question to ask. So take it away.
CALLAN: Yes. I think one of the interesting things about this case is this charge, this first-degree murder charge, it requires a finding of extreme cruelty or atrocity. Now, how could they know what went on since there's no eyewitness who testified to the murder? And we really -- you only have gunshot wounds that, of course, were confirmed by autopsy but there was a finding here of extreme cruelty and atrocity.
And I was just looking at the Massachusetts law to see how they define it and they say if the defendant was indifferent or if he took pleasure in the death, the consciousness and degree of suffering of the deceased, the extent of injuries to the deceased so we could be looking at the number of gunshot wounds, number of blows delivered, manner and degree of the force, the nature of the weapon, the fact that a handgun was used, the disproportion between means to cause death and those employed and this refers to whether means were excessive or out of proportion to kill a person.
That's kind of a strange concept. But any combination of those things rises to the level of extreme cruelty or atrocity and even without an eyewitness, this jury found that this murder falls into that category.
COSTELLO: Interesting. You know, I was just thinking about the family giving their witness impact statements. I think there is -- I would have the sense that I didn't want to speak for my loved ones. Speak for Odin Lloyd and look at Aaron Hernandez and tell him how he's affected, you know, not only Odin Lloyd's family but how could you do that? I mean there has to be --
CASAREZ: Different jurisdictions are different. In some jurisdictions you can talk straight to this convicted murderer of what they did to your loved one. In other jurisdictions you have to speak directly to the court, to the judge. So it will be interesting here. It's much more emotional when they talk directly to the person.
COSTELLO: Absolutely.
Coy Wire, Bleacher Report and CNN Sports is in Atlanta with reaction to this because Aaron Hernandez, let's face it, was a big sports star with everything going for him. He was a star player on the New England Patriots. You saw the Patriots owner take the stand, Robert Kraft. What's the reaction from the world of football, Coy?
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS: You know, personally as a former player in the league, this hurts. I mean there's a lot that has been going on recently with some of the Ray Rice incident and other similar cases that have given former players a bad name. So, you know, this is the deepest cut of all.
I have spoken to some players who were teammates with Aaron Hernandez and this was a guy who came into the league with bad energy from the start. I mean he was drafted in 2010 in the fourth round by the New England Patriots and just three days after he was drafted he made a statement that he had failed a drug test while at the University of Florida. And that was because there were multiple allegations against him at that time.
He kept it clean for some time. And just over two years later signed a five-year contract worth up to $40 million. So this is a guy who had the world at the palm of his hands. But one specific player that I spoke to said that he was hanging around the wrong crowd. He was a bit of a pariah at times in the locker room -- was never truly bought into being a team player and part of the team. The player I spoke to really said this -- while it's shocking, it really wasn't that big of a surprise that something like this happened. It was just one of those situations where you had a guy who made all the wrong decisions and they stacked up one on top of the other until he found himself in this deep pit of despair. And we now know how tragic this story has ended.
COSTELLO: It's just really hard to understand -- right. Like what are you doing? It's just so hard to understand. The sentencing phase of this trial is short in the state of Massachusetts and we expect the judge to hand down a sentence of life in prison in just about ten minutes.
[10:55:06] Mel, on the subject of Aaron Hernandez and a guy who had everything going for him, initially we thought that might play into the juror's mind to try to figure out why would he murder someone when he's making millions and millions of dollars and he's a star on one of the best football teams in the country?
ROBBINS: Yes, Carol. You know, you do worry that celebrity plays a role. I mean we were just talking about this yesterday with regard to the O.J. case. It's a major case that comes to mind when we think about somebody that essentially gets away with murder because people are blinded by the celebrity aspect of things. And this was a case where I was deeply concerned about that.
I was also deeply concerned, frankly, Carol, about the disparity between what you and I and everybody at home knew about Hernandez. The fact that he had another double homicide backed up against this one where he was accused of killing two people outside a nightclub here in Boston over a fight inside of a club. Also the fact that he has yet another case where he's accused of assaulting a correction officer and another inmate in prison; the fact that his fiancee is charged with lying to the grand jury 20 times.
You know, we know all of these things about him that the jury either didn't know or wasn't allowed to consider. You talked earlier about the fact that he had showed Odin Lloyd the spot and that did come in but what he wasn't allowed to expound upon during the trial was the fact that the spot was the spot that he was referring to where he apparently and is accused of shooting and killing two people in a Boston case that's going to happen right after this one.
And so that would have gone straight to motive. So there were a lot of us that were concerned without the full picture of who this guy is and what he's accused of and what his past is and the motive aspect of this case, that the jury wouldn't have enough information to overcome what is a difficult circumstantial case.
But what we've just seen is in fact the facts won. The law won. And this jury absolutely did the right thing. I said it earlier and I'll say it again. I'm very relieved and it may sound weird but I'm proud of these jurors for seeing through the fog of celebrity and using not only the law and the facts but their common sense. Because when you have four people enter an industrial park and only three come out, and we talk a lot about the fact that he had so much to lose.
If he had so much to lose, and he had just watched his future brother- in-law get killed execution style, why the hell didn't he go to the police? Why did he lie to Bob Kraft and perhaps that's exactly what the jury was discussing as they finally came to the conclusion that he was guilty of murder in the first degree. And as Paul Callan explained earlier, what does cruelty mean because you have to find either preplanning or cruelty.
In this case it's darn clear that he was absolutely indifferent after the fact. He went on, he lied, he pretended. He was hanging out with the people that he killed him with and then he went and he claimed that he had nothing to lose. This is the right result -- Carol.
COSTELLO: You know, the other interesting thing that went down in the courtroom and I'll pose this question to Danny is as the verdicts were being read, Aaron Hernandez's attorneys comforted him. One of them had his hand on Aaron Hernandez's shoulder. What is it like as a defense attorney to sit in a courtroom and hear these guilty verdicts against your client that you tried to defend against these charges?
CEVALLOS: It's agony. I was afraid you would ask me that question and I have to give a candid answer. I don't care how long you've been doing it. It is pure agony waiting for those words guilty or not guilty. And then after guilty there's always all that -- you saw all that time where you have to stand there and listen to the judge's sort of written instructions to the jury and the entire time thinking of nothing else but the fact that, wow, my client's life is forever changed and, of course, you can only imagine what the defendant is thinking at that time. I mean the future lays out before -- a very dim future of not a lot of hope, some possible appeals but overall, you know, the odds are he will be in prison for the rest of his life. And that is just a breathtaking thing to even have to comprehend.
COSTELLO: That's just unbelievable. Again, if you're just joining us, Aaron Hernandez guilty of all charges including first-degree murder and that means an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole. The judge will pass that sentence soon -- right Mel? I only have 15 seconds left. Just quickly tell us what's going to happen.
ROBBINS: Momentarily. Momentarily. What's going to happen is you're going to have the courtroom called back into session. The judge will take the bench. She'll announce the verdict again. She'll then do witness impact statements.
[11:00:06] We're going to see Shayanna Jenkins (ph) sister take the stand, very emotional. It's coming right up -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. Thanks to both of you -- Mel Robbins, Danny Cevallos. And thanks to all of you for joining me today.
I'm Carol Costello.
"AT THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND BOLDUAN" next.
