Prosecutors say they'll ask US Supreme Court to restore conviction in
Etan Patz missing child case
[September 16, 2025]
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City prosecutors say they will
ask the U.S. Supreme Court to restore a murder conviction in the 1979
disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz after an appeals court overturned
the verdict in July.
The Manhattan district attorney’s made the disclosure in a court filing
Sunday asking the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hold off on
enforcing its decision in the case of Pedro Hernandez. The former
convenience store clerk became a suspect over 30 years after the first
grader vanished.
The ruling presents “substantial legal questions,” prosecutor Stephen
Kress wrote. The district attorney’s office has now “committed to seek
Supreme Court review,” he said.
In overturning the conviction, a three-judge 2nd Circuit panel ordered
Hernandez freed unless he is retried “within a reasonable period.”
Kress asked that the appeals court wait until the Supreme Court’s filing
deadline of Oct. 20 before sending the case back to a lower-level
federal judge to set a retrial date. That could be put on hold
indefinitely if the high court agrees to weigh in on the case.
The 2nd Circuit previously granted prosecutors a 30-day extension that
was to expire Sunday. It hasn't ruled on the new request.
Hernandez opposes the prosecution’s request for more time.
He has already been tried twice. His 2017 conviction came after a prior
jury couldn’t reach a verdict. Now 64, he has been serving a sentence of
25 years to life in prison.
Hernandez’s lawyers say he confessed falsely because of a mental illness
that sometimes made him hallucinate. They emphasized that the admission
came after police questioned him for seven hours without reading him his
rights or recording the interview. Hernandez then repeated his
confession on tape, at least twice.
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A photograph of Etan Patz hangs on an angel figurine, as part
of a makeshift memorial in the SoHo neighborhood of New York, May
28, 2012. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
At issue in the 2nd Circuit appeal was the state trial judge’s
response to jurors’ questions about whether they had to disregard
the recorded confessions if they found the first, unrecorded one was
invalid. The judge said no.
The appeals court, in overturning Hernandez’s conviction, said the
jury should have gotten a more thorough explanation of its options,
which could have included disregarding all of the confessions.
Hernandez was a teenager working at a convenience shop in Etan’s
downtown Manhattan neighborhood when the boy vanished. Police met
him while canvassing the area but didn’t suspect him until they got
a 2012 tip that he’d made remarks years earlier about having killed
a child in New York, not mentioning Etan’s name.
Etan's case contributed to an era of fear among American families,
making anxious parents more protective of kids who had been allowed
to roam and play unsupervised in their neighborhoods.
The Patzes’ advocacy helped establish a national missing-children
hotline and made it easier for law enforcement agencies to share
information about such cases. The May 25 anniversary of Etan’s
disappearance became National Missing Children’s Day.
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