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The man who confessed to the notorious 1979 disappearance of Etan Patz may soon walk free from prison after a stunning decision by a higher court.
On Monday, July 21, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided to invalidate Pedro Hernandez’s murder conviction, as initially reported by the New York Times. This startling turn of events took place eight years after a Manhattan jury found Hernandez guilty of the murder and abduction of 6-year-old Etan Patz. The case left New York City unsettled for decades and led to significant national policies regarding missing children.
Hernandez’s legal team argued before the appeals court that the instructions provided to the jury in the 2017 murder trial—the defendant’s second trial—were “incorrect and biased the jury,” as noted by the New York Times.
A panel of three federal judges agreed in their 51-page decision and ruled the conviction be overturned.
The disappearance of Etan Patz
Etan Patz disappeared on May 25, 1979, while walking the two short blocks to his school bus stop alone for the first time, a story covered by various reports. He was last sighted at approximately 8:00 a.m. near the intersection of Prince and Wooster Streets in Manhattan’s SoHo area, according to his missing person poster from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan later established the date of Patz’s disappearance as National Missing Children’s Day. The child would become one of the more famous faces printed on the sides of milk cartons, an initiative that aimed to showcase missing children around the United States.
Other well-known missing children of the time included Adam Walsh, Johnny Gosch, and Jonelle Matthews.
But, despite the national coverage, Patz’s case languished and remained unsolved for decades. His body has never been recovered.
Pedro Hernandez’s confession drawn into question
New life was breathed into the case in 2012 when federal agents and NYPD officials spent months excavating a New York City basement less than 100 yards from Patz’s home, according to CNN. Although the search yielded no physical evidence, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said the search spurred a new tip that led them to Hernandez, a New Jersey-based man who worked at a neighborhood bodega near Patz’s home, according to the New York Times.
The tip reportedly came from the suspect’s brother-in-law, according to NBC News.
Hernandez later confessed to using soda to lure Patz into the shop’s basement before choking the boy to death, stuffing his body in a box, and leaving the box on the sidewalk for garbage collectors. The suspect would have been 18 at the time.
Hernandez was first tried in 2015, though a hung jury forced a retrial. In 2017, jurors admitted “deliberations were difficult” but arrived at a guilty verdict after nine days of consideration, according to the New York Times.
At both trials, Hernandez’s lawyers said the defendant’s videotaped confession to police officials in New Jersey was coerced. The defense called into question his mental capacity and possible mental illness, according to ABC New York.
“I did it. It should never have happened,” Hernandez said, according to United Press International. “I started choking him. He wasn’t dead. He was still gasping.”
Clips of the confession were repeatedly played in the second trial, according to NBC News, and he was ultimately sentenced to 25 years to life behind bars.
Why was Hernandez’s conviction vacated?
On Monday, the appeals court ruled that Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley, during the 2017 murder trial, was “clearly wrong” in an instruction to jurors, and the mistake was “manifestly prejudicial,” according to New York City’s Fox affiliate. The New York Times reported Wiley instructed the panel during deliberations not to disregard Hernandez’s confession, even if jurors found it took place before he was mirandized.
Federal Judges stated, “We conclude that the state trial court contradicted clearly established federal law and that this error was not harmless,” according to the New York Times.
Furthermore, the decision looked at the context of Hernandez’s confession, a focal point in the heavily circumstantial case, according to NBC News.
“Hernandez, who has a documented history of mental illnesses and a low intelligence quotient (‘IQ’), initially confessed after approximately seven hours of unwarned questioning by three police officers,” per Monday’s decision. “Immediately after Hernandez confessed, the police administered Miranda warnings, began a video recording, and had Hernandez repeat his confession on tape. He did so again, several hours later, to an Assistant District Attorney (‘ADA’). At trial, the prosecution discussed and played these videos repeatedly.”
Harvey Fishbein, representing Hernandez, said Monday’s decision proved “an innocent man was convicted.” He is calling for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to drop the “misguided charges,” per the New York Times.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office was “reviewing the decision,” said spokesperson Emily Tuttle.
What happens next?
The higher court ordered Hernandez to be freed unless New York State ordered a new trial within a “reasonable period,” according to the New York Times.
A judge will have to make a final decision concerning next steps, though it remains unclear when that will take place.
Etan Patz’s parents Julie and Stanley Patz, whose advocacy pushed the direction of children’s protection laws, have yet to publicly comment on the recent decision.
This story is still developing.
