Supreme Court Reinstates Murder Conviction in Etan Patz Case

The Supreme Court on Monday, in a six-three decision, reinstated the murder conviction of a man in connection with the 1979 Manhattan disappearance and murder of 6-year-old Etan Patz.Patz’s killing captured national attention and helped launch the missing children movement in America. Patz was one of the first missing children featured on a milk carton.The disappearance went unsolved for 20 years until 2012 when Pedro Hernandez’s brother-in-law reported that Hernandez had made statements about his involvement with Patz’s disappearance.Police picked up Hernandez and began questioning him without first administering a Miranda warning. Hernandez, who is a man with a low IQ and a history of mental illness, eventually confessed to strangling Patz and dumping his body in an alley behind the bodega where he worked.Detectives then read him his rights, and Hernandez made a second videotaped confession. He was charged with murder and kidnapping in a New York state court. The first trial ended in a hung jury and a second trial began in 2016.At the second trial, lawyers for Hernandez moved to suppress his statement to detectives, but the trial court judge denied the motion saying he had waived his rights before making the videotaped confession. Jurors asked the judge if they needed to disregard all of Hernandez’s confessions if they decided he didn’t confess voluntarily when he hadn’t been read his rights yet. The judge said “no” and the jury found Hernandez guilty. The judge then sentenced him to 25-years-to-life in prison.A New York appeals court later upheld the conviction. Hernandez filed a federal suit claiming the state courts had violated federal law by rejecting his Miranda arguments. Last year, a Second Circuit Appeals court threw out Hernandez’s 2017 state conviction.New York prosecutors appealed to the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling. The majority of justices agreed that federal courts should not second-guess state courts. “The Second Circuit exceeded its authority in holding that Hernandez is entitled to relief,” the Supreme Court order stated.Prosecutors had been preparing to try Hernandez a third time for the murder. The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, was pleased with the Supreme Court decision. “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,” Mr. Bragg said in a statement.Three liberal justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor, disagreed with the ruling but did not write a dissent.

Supreme Court Reinstates Murder Conviction in Etan Patz Case

Supreme Court Reinstates Murder Conviction in Etan Patz Case

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