Supreme Court Reinstates Conviction in Etan Patz Murder Case

The U.S. Supreme Court reinstated Pedro Hernandez’s 2017 murder and kidnapping conviction Monday in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz, reversing a federal appeals court ruling that had ordered New York to retry or release him.

In an unsigned decision, the justices ruled six to three that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit went beyond the limited role federal courts have when reviewing state criminal convictions. Hernandez had challenged his conviction through a federal habeas corpus petition.

At the center of the decision was not whether Hernandez’s confession was reliable, but whether a federal court had the authority to overturn the state conviction based on how the trial judge answered a question from jurors. The Supreme Court said the Second Circuit went too far when it granted Hernandez relief.

Etan Patz vanished on May 25, 1979, while walking from his family’s lower Manhattan apartment to a school bus stop. His disappearance drew national attention and helped shape the modern missing children movement. Etan was among the first missing children whose photo appeared on milk cartons. The anniversary of his disappearance later became National Missing Children’s Day.

Hernandez, who worked at a nearby bodega at the time, did not become a suspect until 2012. Authorities questioned him in New Jersey after his brother-in-law reported that Hernandez had made statements about Etan’s disappearance years earlier. Hernandez eventually confessed to killing the child, according to court records, but his lawyers have long argued that the statement was false.

Detectives first questioned Hernandez before advising him of his rights, then recorded later statements after he repeated the confession. He also gave another recorded confession to a Manhattan prosecutor. Defense attorneys claimed Hernandez was vulnerable to making a false confession because of mental illness, low intelligence, and the pressure of police questioning.

A first trial ended in a deadlocked jury in 2015. A second jury convicted Hernandez in 2017 of kidnapping and felony murder. Under New York law, felony murder can apply when a person dies during certain serious crimes, including kidnapping, even if prosecutors do not prove that the person specifically intended to kill.

During deliberations at the second trial, jurors asked whether they had to disregard Hernandez’s later confessions if they found that his earlier unwarned statement was not voluntary. The trial judge answered, “The answer is no.” Jurors later returned a guilty verdict. Hernandez was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

The Second Circuit found that the response was too limited. The appeals court said jurors should have received a fuller answer, including guidance that they could consider whether the earlier statement affected the later confessions.

New York prosecutors challenged that ruling at the Supreme Court, arguing that the federal appeals court improperly second-guessed the state courts after a lengthy trial. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the federal ruling failed to account for the full record, including a five-month trial with dozens of witnesses.

Federal habeas corpus allows a person in state custody to ask a federal court to review whether a conviction violates federal law or the Constitution. Congress narrowed that review through a 1996 law known as the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. Under that law, federal courts may not simply reweigh a state trial or replace a state court’s judgment with their own.

Relief is generally limited to cases where the state court decision conflicts with clearly established Supreme Court precedent or applies that precedent unreasonably. The justices said Hernandez did not meet that standard.

Hernandez’s challenge relied partly on Missouri v. Seibert, a Supreme Court case involving a police tactic in which officers questioned a suspect, obtained a confession, then gave Miranda warnings and sought the same confession again. The Second Circuit said Seibert supported a broader jury instruction because Hernandez’s later recorded statements followed an earlier unwarned confession.

According to the justices, the appeals court used Seibert too broadly. The majority said the case addressed when a confession may be admitted as evidence, not what a trial judge must tell jurors during deliberations about how to weigh later statements.

Hernandez’s lawyers argued that the jury should have been told more about how to treat the recorded statements if jurors doubted the voluntariness of the earlier confession. The Supreme Court ruled that no clearly established federal rule required the instruction that the Second Circuit said was necessary.

The majority also said the federal appeals court appeared to have serious doubts about the reliability of Hernandez’s confessions, but could not use habeas review to reassess the evidence after New York courts had upheld the verdict.

The Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit and sent the case back for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. The ruling leaves Hernandez’s 2017 conviction and sentence of 25 years to life in place.