The United States Supreme Court moved Monday to reinstate the 2017 murder conviction of Pedro Hernandez, the man found guilty of kidnapping and killing 6-year-old Etan Patz, whose 1979 disappearance in New York City became one of the most haunting missing-child cases in American history.
By a 6-3 vote, the court’s conservative majority sided with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, reversing a lower appellate court’s decision that had thrown out the jury’s guilty verdict against Hernandez, a former worker at a local delicatessen in New York’s Soho neighborhood.
The ruling was unsigned and spanned 10 pages. The three liberal justices on the court voted against the decision.
District Attorney Bragg released a statement following the ruling: “Today the Supreme Court agreed with the findings of multiple lower courts and upheld the trial conviction of Pedro Hernandez for the horrific murder of Etan Patz, which changed a generation of New Yorkers. This office has remained steadfast in its pursuit of justice for Etan and the Patz family, and will continue to stand by this important conviction.”
Young Etan vanished in 1979 while walking alone for the very first time to a school bus stop in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood. He was never found. His case gained national attention and helped give rise to the now-iconic practice of printing missing children’s photographs on the sides of milk cartons in an effort to generate public tips.
Hernandez was not arrested until 2012, when investigators received information that he had confessed to the crime years earlier during a church group gathering. After his arrest, Hernandez admitted to police that he lured Patz into the basement of the Soho deli where he was employed, strangled him, and disposed of his body in a nearby alley.
His defense attorneys have maintained that Hernandez suffers from mental illness and that his confession was obtained through police coercion. The defense also attempted to shift blame onto Jose Ramos, a man who had been romantically involved with a babysitter for the Patz family and was long considered the primary suspect in the case. Ramos, who passed away in March of this year, had previously served a lengthy prison sentence after being convicted of sexually abusing boys.
Hernandez, now in his mid-60s, faced his first trial in 2015, which ended without a verdict after a single juror refused to convict due to doubts about his guilt. At a second trial two years later, in 2017, a jury found him guilty of both kidnapping and murder. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
That conviction was later overturned in 2025 by the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which determined that the trial judge had given the jury improper instructions that unfairly influenced the outcome against Hernandez.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the 2nd Circuit’s decision violated a 1996 federal law that restricts the ability of federal courts to provide relief to individuals convicted in state courts.
The legal dispute centered on how the jury was instructed regarding Hernandez’s confessions. He initially admitted to the crime before being read his Miranda rights — the legal protections that inform suspects of their right to remain silent and to have an attorney present. After being informed of those rights and agreeing to waive them, Hernandez was recorded on video making two additional confessions.
During deliberations at the 2017 trial, jurors sent a note to Justice Maxwell Wiley, the presiding judge, asking whether they were required to disregard the two videotaped confessions if they found the original, un-Mirandized admission to be involuntary. The judge responded simply: “The answer is, no” — a response the 2nd Circuit later called improper and “manifestly prejudicial.”
The anniversary of Etan Patz’s disappearance, May 25, continues to be observed nationally as National Missing Children’s Day.
