"A judge ruled Wednesday that ballistics evidence and testimony by firearms experts may be presented at the double murder trial of former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez, rejecting defense claims that they are unreliable. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke’s ruling allows prosecutors to attempt to prove that a .38-caliber pistol found in the trunk of a car belonging to a woman with ties to Hernandez is the same pistol used in the 2012 slaying of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in Boston’s South End. Defense lawyers had urged the judge to exclude the evidence, citing a recent study by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology that questioned the scientific validity of firearms analysis. In a seven-page ruling, Locke concluded “there is no basis to disturb settled Massachusetts law permitting a qualified firearms expert to offer opinion evidence” in the case against Hernandez. Locke wrote that defense lawyers may use the report challenging firearms analysis “as fodder for cross-examination of certain witnesses at the trial.”..........According to prosecutors, Boston police detectives recovered three bullets, a bullet jacket, and bullet fragments from de Abreu and Furtado and the car they were riding in when they were shot while stopped at a traffic light. After conducting tests on a Smith & Wesson pistol recovered in 2013 from a car driven by a woman with ties to Hernandez, Boston police concluded it was the murder weapon, prosecutors wrote in court papers."