Supreme Court restores conviction in infamous Etan Patz NYC murder
Prosecutors said the family of Etan Patz - whose body was never found - should not have to endure another trial.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled June 22 that a man convicted of kidnapping and murdering a 6-year-old in one of the most infamous “cold cases” in American history should not be granted a new trial.
In an unsigned opinion, the court reversed a decision that determined the jurors who convicted Pedro Hernandez of killing Etan Patz received improper instructions.
Etan vanished near his New York City home more than four decades ago. His body has never been found, but his disappearance helped transform the way the country handles missing children.
Hernandez, a former store clerk in Etan's neighborhood, was named a suspect in 2012. Hernandez confessed to the crime, a confession his defense team argued was false and borne from mental illness. After his first murder trial ended in a hung jury, Hernandez was convicted at his second trial in 2017 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction last year. The court said jurors received instructions from the trial judge that could have improperly swayed them toward convicting him.
The appeals court said the judge didn’t correctly tell jurors how to consider the fact that Hernandez’s first confession came before he had been advised of his rights, including his right to an attorney and his right to remain silent.
New York prosecutors said the appeals court was wrong to throw out the jury’s verdict “on such a slender reed.”
Retrying Hernandez could be difficult because of how long ago the crime occurred and because some of the witnesses who testified at his trial have died, prosecutors wrote in their Supreme Court appeal.
And Etan’s family, they said, would "have to endure yet another highly publicized recounting of the violence done to 6-year-old Etan after waiting decades for an answer to his disappearance.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the “horrific murder” of Etan “changed a generation of New Yorkers.”
“This office has remained steadfast in its pursuit of justice for Etan and the Patz family and will continue to stand by this important conviction,” Bragg said in a statement after the court's decision.
AMBER Alerts and pictures on milk cartons
Etan's case, along with that of 6-year-old Adam Walsh, who vanished from a shopping mall in Hollywood, Florida, in 1981 and whose partial remains were found two weeks later, are credited with drawing a wave of media attention to missing children and changing the way the FBI and other agencies across the country handle such cases.
Unlike with stolen cars or other objects that had a national database, there was no crime database for children, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said. There was also no AMBER Alert system.
Etan was one of the first – and remains one of the most notorious – children featured as missing on the side of milk cartons. The containers in the 1980s often displayed posters with photos of missing children and a newly created hotline for sharing any information about their whereabouts. The "Milk Carton Kids" movement didn't last long and didn't lead to many success stories, but for many people, milk cartons are still linked to missing kids.