{"id":4757,"date":"2026-06-22T17:37:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T17:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=4757"},"modified":"2026-06-22T17:37:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T17:37:59","slug":"supreme-court-restores-mans-conviction-in-murder-of-6-year-old-etan-patz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=4757","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court restores man\u2019s conviction in murder of 6-year-old Etan Patz"},"content":{"rendered":"

The young boy disappeared in May 1979 on his way to his school bus in Manhattan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
A newspaper with a photograph of Etan Patz is seen in 2012 at a makeshift memorial in the SoHo neighborhood of New York, where Patz lived before his disappearance in 1979. (Mark Lennihan\/AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>

Read more Michigan is scrambling for a new coach after Dusty May leaves to lead NBA\u2019s Dallas Mavericks<\/a><\/p>\n

In a 6-3 decision<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s three liberals \u2014 Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson \u2014 noted their disagreement with the court\u2019s unsigned order reinstating Hernandez\u2019s conviction but did not explain their reasoning.<\/p>\n

In May 1979, Patz disappeared after leaving his family\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s brother-in-law reported to police that Hernandez had said he was involved in Patz\u2019s disappearance and killing.<\/p>

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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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

They used that evidence to secure a conviction at trial. Hernandez was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court\u2019s 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\u2019s confessions, which he contended had been improperly obtained.<\/p>\n

The high court\u2019s majority decided that the 2nd Circuit \u201cexceeded its authority\u201d in overturning Hernandez\u2019s conviction. While the appeals court \u201copinion appears to reflect serious doubt about the reliability of Hernandez\u2019s confessions,\u201d federal courts cannot intervene in a state court conviction based on an evaluation of the evidence, the high court said.<\/p>

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The case of 6-year-old Etan Patz had captivated the nation nearly 50 years ago, when the New York boy disappeared. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nSupreme Court restores man\u2019s conviction in murder of 6-year-old Etan Patz - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=4757\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Supreme Court restores man\u2019s conviction in murder of 6-year-old Etan Patz - 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