Supreme Court restores murder conviction in 1979 Etan Patz case

The U.S. Supreme Court has reinstated the murder conviction of Pedro Hernandez in the 1979 disappearance of six-year-old Etan Patz, reversing a lower federal appeals court decision that had overturned the verdict.

CBS News reported that in a 6–3 ruling on Monday, the justices sided with New York prosecutors who argued that the federal appeals court had overstepped its authority when it threw out Hernandez’s conviction based on how a trial judge responded to a juror’s question during deliberations.

The unsigned opinion stated that federal courts should not second-guess state court decisions under a 1996 law designed to limit federal oversight of state criminal trials. “The Second Circuit exceeded its authority in holding that Hernandez is entitled to relief,” the court wrote.

The decision means Hernandez, 64, will continue serving a sentence of 25 years to life at Elmira Correctional Facility in New York. He will be eligible for parole in 2037.

Hernandez’s attorneys expressed disappointment, maintaining that he is innocent and arguing that his confession was unreliable due to mental illness. They said he was questioned for hours before being advised of his rights and later repeated his confession on tape.

The case centres on the 1979 disappearance of Etan Patz, who vanished after leaving his home in New York City to walk alone to a nearby school bus stop for the first time. He was never seen again, and his body has never been found.

The case became one of the most high-profile missing child investigations in U.S. history, helping change how law enforcement and the public respond to missing children. Etan was also among the first children featured on milk cartons as part of national awareness campaigns.

Hernandez, who worked at a convenience store near the area at the time, was not identified as a suspect until decades later in 2012.

He was first tried in 2015, when a jury deadlocked. A second trial in 2017 resulted in conviction, but that verdict was later overturned by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the trial judge should have provided a fuller response to a jury question about Hernandez’s confessions.

With Monday’s Supreme Court ruling, that conviction has now been restored, ending years of legal back-and-forth in the decades-old case.