June 22, 2026:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday (June 22, 2026) reinstated a murder conviction in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
The justices, by a 6-3 vote, granted an appeal from New York prosecutors who had urged them to undo a federal appeals court decision that overturned the verdict. The three liberal justices dissented.
Prosecutors had been preparing to try the man, Pedro Hernandez, for a third time. His first trial ended in a mistrial.
The unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed Hernandez’ murder and kidnapping conviction in the second trial because of how the judge had answered a question from jurors.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had called the basis for overturning the conviction “a slender reed” that essentially ignored a five-month-long trial with 66 witnesses.
The justices agreed, in an unsigned opinion, that federal courts should not second-guess state courts under a 1996 federal law that was intended to reduce federal court oversight of state criminal trials.
“The Second Circuit exceeded its authority in holding that Hernandez is entitled to relief,” the justices wrote.
Hernandez, 64, has been serving a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
Bragg hailed the high court’s 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,” Bragg, a Democrat, said in a statement.
Hernandez’ lawyers said they were “terribly disappointed” by the ruling. “We firmly believe that an innocent man is in jail for a crime that he did not commit,” attorneys Harvey Fishbein and Alice Fontier said.
Hernandez admitted to the crime under police questioning, but his lawyers say he confessed falsely because of a mental illness that sometimes made him hallucinate. They emphasized that the admission came after police queried him for about seven hours before reading him his rights and recording the interview. Hernandez then repeated his confession on tape, at least twice.
Etan vanished while walking to his downtown Manhattan school bus stop on May 25, 1979. Hernandez worked at a nearby convenience shop at the time, but the Maple Shade, New Jersey, resident didn’t become a suspect until 2012.
Etan was among the first missing children ever to appear on milk cartons, and the anniversary of his disappearance became National Missing Children’s Day.
Hernandez already has been tried twice. A jury deadlocked in 2015, and then a different panel of jurors convicted him at a 2017 retrial.
During deliberations, the 2017 jurors asked a complicated question: If they decided Hernandez didn’t confess voluntarily when he hadn’t been read his rights yet, must they disregard his other confessions? The then-judge responded simply, “the answer is no.” The jury went on to convict.
In overturning that verdict, the appeals court said the jury’s question should have gotten a more fulsome answer, including the possibility of discounting all the confessions.
Nov. 25, 2025:
NEW YORK (AP) — A notorious 1979 missing-child case is headed to trial a third time after New York prosecutors vowed Tuesday (Nov. 25, 2025) to retry the man whose murder conviction was recently overturned in the disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
In a case that has long been gnarled by time and uncertainty, a new set of prosecutors now will need to bring back witnesses, elicit memories and try to persuade another jury that Pedro Hernandez lured and killed the boy as he walked to his school bus stop in New York City.
“After thorough review, the district attorney has determined that the available, admissible evidence supports prosecuting” Hernandez on murder and kidnapping charges, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Sarah Marquez wrote, adding that prosecutors “are prepared to proceed.”
Hernandez’s lawyers said they were deeply disappointed by prosecutors’ decision.
“We remain convinced that Mr. Hernandez is an innocent man. But we will be prepared for trial and will present an even stronger defense,” attorneys Harvey Fishbein and Alice Fontier said in a statement.
Hernandez is due in court Monday for a discussion of next steps. Under federal court rulings, jury selection for his retrial must begin by June 1, or he must be released from prison.
Etan’s father, Stan Patz, declined to comment when reached by phone Tuesday. He had hailed Hernandez’ now-overturned conviction as “some measure of justice for our wonderful little boy, Etan.”
Hernandez, now 64, worked at a nearby corner store when Etan disappeared on May 25, 1979. It was the first day his mother let him make the roughly block-long trip to the bus stop by himself. The first-grader’s body was never found, but he was legally declared dead in 2001, at his family’s request.
His case fueled a national focus on child disappearances and abductions. Etan was one of the first to appear on milk cartons, and his parents helped successfully advocate for a national hotline and other steps to help report and rescue vanished youngsters. The anniversary of Etan’s disappearance became National Missing Children’s Day.
The case affected parenting, as well as policing, contributing to a cultural shift toward tighter supervision of American kids.
Hernandez didn’t become a suspect until decades later, when authorities learned that he had made various, somewhat inconsistent statements to confidants over the years about having killed a child or person in New York.
Hernandez then told police in 2012 he had strangled Etan after offering him a soda and enticing him into the store basement. “Something just took over me,” Hernandez told authorities on video.
With no physical evidence, the confession was crucial. His lawyers said it was delusional, false and made under pressure from police bent on closing a decades-old case.
Hernandez had been diagnosed with a mental disorder, has a very low IQ and was on antipsychotic medication. Police questioned him for about seven hours without reading him his rights or recording the interaction — those steps were taken only after, according to police, he implicated himself for the first time.
Hernandez’s first trial ended in a hung jury, because of one member’s misgivings about the defendant’s mental health and hourslong police questioning. Hernandez was convicted at a 2017 retrial and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
A federal appeals court ruled in July that his conviction was tainted by a judge’s “clearly wrong” response to a 2017 jury question about Hernandez’s confessions.
The question was whether jurors had to disregard Hernandez’s recorded confessions if they concluded the first, unrecorded admissions were coerced. The jury was told the answer was simply “no.”
It should have been “maybe,” with an explanation of options and legal principles for assessing such situations, the appeals judges said. They ordered his release unless his retrial begins “within a reasonable period,” leaving a lower court judge to specify how long. She then set the deadline at June 1.
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