Prosecutors in New York have made a direct appeal to the United States Supreme Court, asking it to restore a murder conviction linked to one of America's most infamous missing child cases.
A Decades-Old Case Returns to the Highest Court
On Thursday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and senior deputies formally requested that the nation's highest court reinstate the 2017 conviction of Pedro Hernandez. Hernandez was found guilty of murdering six-year-old Etan Patz, who vanished in 1979 while walking to his school bus stop in SoHo, Manhattan.
The move comes despite preparations for a third trial. Prosecutors hope the Supreme Court will short-circuit the retrial process by overturning a federal appeals court decision from this summer that nullified the conviction. That appeals court ruled that the trial judge gave an insufficient answer to a critical jury question.
The Legal Battle Over a Contested Confession
The core of the legal dispute hinges on Hernandez's confession and how the jury was instructed to consider it. Hernandez, now 64, admitted to the crime during police questioning in 2012. His defence team has long argued he confessed falsely due to a mental illness that can cause hallucinations, noting the admission came after roughly seven hours of interrogation before he was read his rights.
During deliberations in the 2017 retrial, jurors posed a complex question: if they found Hernandez's initial, unrecorded confession was not voluntary, must they also disregard his subsequent taped confessions? The judge answered simply, "no." The jury then convicted him.
The federal appeals court later stated this response was inadequate and that jurors should have received a fuller explanation, including the possibility of discounting all confessions. Prosecutors, in their new filing, argue this reasoning is a "slender reed" that improperly flouted laws limiting federal court interference with state convictions.
Timeline and Next Steps in a Protracted Saga
Etan Patz's disappearance on 25 May 1979 became a national tragedy, making him one of the first missing children featured on milk cartons. The anniversary is now marked as National Missing Children's Day. Hernandez, a New Jersey resident who worked in a nearby shop at the time, was not a suspect until 2012.
He has been tried twice: a 2015 trial ended with a deadlocked jury, leading to the 2017 conviction now under scrutiny. Prosecutors emphasised in their filing that the conviction followed a five-month trial featuring 66 witnesses, some now deceased.
Meanwhile, the practical machinery for a retrial continues. Prosecutors and defence attorneys are due in court to discuss scheduling. A new judge is presiding, and under existing federal court rulings, jury selection must begin by 1 June or Hernandez must be released from prison, where he is serving 25 years to life.
The Supreme Court's decision on whether to hear the prosecutors' appeal will determine the next chapter in this four-decade-long legal and human story.
