Defense attorney Jose Baez is known for his fiery and passionate advocacy of his clients and that well-earned reputation was on full display Thursday afternoon in Judge Jeffrey Locke‘s courtroom during the trial of former NFL Star Aaron Hernandez.
Much like his colleague’s intense interaction with Judge Locke Monday, Baez nearly lost his temper with the judge on Tuesday, accusing the judge of dressing him down in front of the jury and constantly interrupting his objections.
The issue that got Baez so fired up was that Judge Locke seemed to disagree with Baez about the proper time to lodge an objection over the prosecutor’s method of entering evidence into the record.
“I’m trying to make my record and you speak over me every time,” Baez said, before mentioning that his colleague Mr. Sullivan made a similar argument yesterday.
He then continued, “We’ve had this issue the entire trial. You seem to cut off the defense every time we [try] to lay a record . . . [of an objection] . . . . If you don’t me want to defend Mr. Hernandez, I will sit down and shut up.”
Judge Locke then angrily retorted, “Mr. Baez! . . . The issue is this! You came to side bar and told me that you had lodged objections to that testimony.” Locke then said he did not hear the objections and even listened for them on playback, but still did not hear any objection on the record. Watch the fully fiery exchange above!
[image via screengrab]