The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday reinstated the 2017 murder conviction of Pedro Hernandez in the disappearance and death of 6-year-old Etan Patz, a case that has remained one of the most widely known missing-child matters in the United States. The justices, in a 6-3 ruling, granted a request from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to set aside a lower court decision that had nullified a jury verdict finding Hernandez guilty of kidnapping and murdering Patz.
The court issued an unsigned, 10-page opinion reflecting its conservative majority, while the three liberal justices dissented. The decision concluded that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals erred when it overturned the conviction in 2025, determining that the appellate court’s action ran afoul of a 1996 federal statute that restricts the ability of federal courts to provide relief to state-court prisoners.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg released a statement praising the high court’s decision. "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," the office said.
Patz vanished in 1979 while walking alone to a school bus stop in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood; he was six years old and never recovered. The boy’s disappearance later entered the national consciousness, with his image among the early examples printed on milk cartons in an effort to generate tips and publicity about missing children.
Law enforcement arrested Hernandez in 2012 after receiving a tip that he had confessed to the crime during a church group meeting years earlier. According to the record, Hernandez initially admitted to investigators without having been advised of his Miranda rights. After he was read those rights and waived them, Hernandez was videotaped twice on separate occasions making statements in which he said he lured Patz into the basement of the Soho delicatessen where he had worked, strangled the child and discarded the body in an alley.
Hernandez’s legal team has contested the weight and voluntariness of those admissions. They have argued that Hernandez suffers from mental illness and that his initial confession was coerced by police. Defense attorneys also attempted to point blame at another individual long suspected in the case, Jose Ramos. Ramos, who dated a babysitter for the Patz family and had been considered a prime suspect for years, died in March of this year. The record shows Ramos previously served a lengthy prison sentence after a conviction for sexually abusing boys.
Hernandez, now in his mid-60s, first faced trial in 2015; that case ended without a verdict when a single holdout juror prevented a unanimous decision. He was retried in 2017, convicted of kidnapping and murder, and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
In 2025, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Hernandez’s conviction. The appeals court concluded that the trial judge had given an improper instruction to jurors and that the instruction was sufficiently prejudicial to have affected the outcome. The specific jury question at issue had arisen during the second day of deliberations in the 2017 trial.
Jurors had sent a note to Justice Maxwell Wiley asking whether they were required to disregard two videotaped confessions if they found that an earlier, non-Mirandized statement was involuntary. The trial judge replied, "The answer is, no." The 2nd Circuit described that response as improper and "manifestly prejudicial," and on that basis vacated the conviction.
The Supreme Court disagreed with the 2nd Circuit’s remedy, finding that the appellate court’s action violated the federal limitation enacted in 1996 on the power of federal courts to grant relief to state-court convictions. With the high court’s ruling, the 2017 verdict and Hernandez’s sentence are restored.
The anniversary of Patz’s disappearance, May 25, continues to be observed as National Missing Children’s Day.
Context and procedural chronology
- 1979 - Etan Patz disappears while walking to a school bus stop in Soho, Manhattan.
- 2012 - Pedro Hernandez is arrested following a tip about a decades-old confession at a church group.
- 2015 - First trial of Hernandez ends in a hung jury due to one holdout juror.
- 2017 - Hernandez is retried, convicted of kidnapping and murder, and sentenced to 25 years to life.
- 2025 - The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns the conviction, citing an improper jury instruction.
- 2026 - The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, reinstates the 2017 conviction based on limits in a 1996 federal law.