A judge agreed to delay former Patriots star Aaron Hernandez’s double murder trial after his lawyers successfully argued that his first murder trial would get in the way of preparations.

Hernandez’s attorneys asked that the double murder trial, originally scheduled to begin in May, be delayed six months. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke agreed to a delay, but said he wanted to see how long the other murder trial took before deciding on a date, The Boston Globe reports.

Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to the 2012 murders of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, who were shot to death while stopped at a traffic light in Boston’s South End.


Hernandez also faces a first-degree murder charge for the death of Odin Lloyd, a semi-professional football player who was killed in North Attleborough in June 2013. That trial is slated to begin in January.

Because prosecutors could call up to 300 people as possible witnesses in Lloyd’s case, Hernandez’s lawyers asked for the delay to have enough time to prepare for the double murder trial.

“If [prosecutors] really call all those people, we’re going to be in Bristol for two or three months,’’ Charles Rankin, one of Hernandez’s lawyers, said in court. “That would make it impossible for us to be ready by May 28.’’