The young boy disappeared in May 1979 on his way to his school bus in Manhattan.
The Supreme Court on Monday restored the conviction of the man found guilty of kidnapping and murdering 6-year-old Etan Patz in a case that captivated the nation nearly 50 years ago.
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In a 6-3 decision, the court found that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York erred in overturning the conviction of Pedro Hernandez, who had confessed multiple times to killing Patz before a jury convicted him in 2017.
The court’s three liberals — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — noted their disagreement with the court’s unsigned order reinstating Hernandez’s conviction but did not explain their reasoning.
In May 1979, Patz disappeared after leaving his family’s apartment in Lower Manhattan to go to school. On his way to the bus, Patz stopped to buy a drink in a bodega where Hernandez, then 18 years old, worked.
Patz never boarded the bus and was never seen alive again. After an intense search for the boy, the case went cold until 2012, when Hernandez’s brother-in-law reported to police that Hernandez had said he was involved in Patz’s disappearance and killing.
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When police questioned Hernandez, he confessed to strangling Patz and dumping his body behind the bodega, according to the Supreme Court’s recounting of the events. Hernandez, who the justices noted has a low IQ and a history of mental illness, later repeated that confession on video to prosecutors.
They used that evidence to secure a conviction at trial. Hernandez was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
The Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday follows a long-running legal saga in which Hernandez has sought to overturn his conviction. At issue was whether the jury during the New York state trial had been properly instructed on how to consider Hernandez’s confessions, which he contended had been improperly obtained.
The high court’s majority decided that the 2nd Circuit “exceeded its authority” in overturning Hernandez’s conviction. While the appeals court “opinion appears to reflect serious doubt about the reliability of Hernandez’s confessions,” federal courts cannot intervene in a state court conviction based on an evaluation of the evidence, the high court said.
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