Now, maybe I'm just wanting to be super technical here, but that reads to me, a layman, like the spirit of the law is designed to prevent a person from marrying someone to prevent them from having to testify BUT it explicitly states that it applies only if the person wedding the accused was aware the accused spouse was arrested or had been charged.

What if two people were engaged to be married June 1st but on May 29th one of them was arrested and charged with a crime. If they got married as planned on June 1st, do you think they could invoke SP in that case?

Clearly a fan of NBC's Hannibal, Hernandez is considering breaking his thumb, slipping out of the handcuffs and going Gronk on everyone's ass.

Here's the actual California code section:

Your interpretation of CA is correct, which was my point. In CA you can't get married to avoid testifying.

In MA you apparently can.

This means in CA we value the sanctity of evidence over the sanctity of marital loyalty, while MA values the sanctity of marital loyalty over the sanctity of evidence.

I wasn't aware any state allowed strategic marriage, so to speak.

EDIT: Answer to your question is that if the arrest pre-dated the date of legal marriage, then the privilege would not apply in California. Legal marriage is not engagement, it's marriage.

Query whether the spouse could successfully argue that he/she was not aware of the charge until after the legal marriage.

Greatest thread title change in history

It is incredibly dumb to allow strategic marriage, so dumb that I'm not convinced I was wrong.

edit:

Especially now with gay marriage. Who wants to go commit a crime with me in MA?

Mike Loyko ‏@NEPD_Loyko 1h
Aaron Hernandez's last NFL reception was an 11 yard pass from Tom Brady, the last player to tackle him..Bernard Pollard #Patriots

Bernard Pollard strikes again

Yeah the idea of "Strategic marriage" is why I posed the question.

The law is very clear that if you planned to get married on Aug. 1st, get arrested and charged May 29th and then get married Jun. 1st (in jail), you get no protection. That seems obv since moving the date would be almost certainly an admission that you were trying to take advantage.

If you kept the original date though, I'd think, given the wording of the law that you'd have a chance to argue that you intended to get married on a certain date, didn't chance plans regardless of the arrest/charges, and therefore should get the protection. I assume a judge wouldn't care and would force you to testify anyway, just thought it was odd.

Edit: And when it comes to forcing her to testify, assuming she were somewhere other than MA and had to, if she's intimately aware of what went on that night, can't she just invoke her rights against incriminating herself and refuse to answer anyway?

POTT

What if he posts bail (hypothetically, I know there's no bail) and gets a shotgun marriage the day he gets out? He's charged with a crime but posted bail to avoid being in jail. Then his spouse couldn't testify against him, right?

Feel like we're AIDSing this thread so I'll stop here, but yeah, she can make a number of motions to try to evade testifying (in California).

Doesn't even matter, apparently in MA they just get married and boom.

Not sure why even THAT matters, since the evidence is so lol. If she's smart she says sure, negotiates down the time required to remain married before she gets X% of his assets, and moves on with her life.

cphoya is right about spousal privilege in mass. everyone arguing with him is wrong. 457 mass. 858.

If it hasn't been said, there's some good policework here. It's so easy to let the media get a grasp of too much information and **** it all up. But the investigation was kept on the DL (or as DL as possible for a NFL player) and they waited until they had an ironclad case against Hernandez for murder.

Given the explanation and information provided to us, the first-degree murder charge seems pretty solid. Bet he wished he killed the other two guys instead of the actual victim.

Maybe he can become pen pals with Rae Carruth.

I can't wait for the OTL interview in a couple years.

"What would you do differently if you could do it all over again?"

"Dat gum, man. . ."

Not only that, but apparently in MA she can't testify about things communicated to her even if she wanted to. Spousal disqualification or something similar.

MA loves them some marriage.

If I cover my mouth maybe I won't have to toss someone's salad and get them to their climate.

And I wouldn't bring witnesses to a felony.

This story is going to make for the greatest Dateline of all time

So the victim was texting obviously during the car ride. I presume he was in the passengers seat and AH was driving.

AH: hey, what are you doing on your phone? You better not be texting anybody.

Lloyd: no, no I'm playing Words With Friends

AH: oh ok...

The texts to his mom and family are terrifying. He knew something wasn't right.