By Jan Wolfe
June 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court reinstated on Monday the 2017 murder conviction of a man in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz in New York City, one of the most notorious U.S. missing-child cases.
The justices in a 6-3 ruling granted a request by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to overturn a lower court's decision that threw out a jury's verdict that former local delicatessen worker Pedro Hernandez kidnapped and murdered Patz.
The Supreme Court's 10-page ruling, powered by its conservative majority, was unsigned. The court's three liberal justices dissented from the 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," Bragg said in a statement.
Patz vanished in 1979 as he walked alone for the first time to a school bus stop in the Soho neighborhood of Manhattan, and was never found. The boy became one of the first missing children whose faces would become ubiquitous as emblems printed on the sides of milk cartons to publicize their disappearance in hopes of generating investigative tips.
Police arrested Hernandez in 2012 after getting a tip that he had confessed to the crime at a church group decades earlier. Hernandez then confessed to police that he lured Patz to the basement of the Soho deli where he worked, strangled him and dumped his body in an alley.
Hernandez's defense attorneys have argued that Hernandez is mentally ill and his confession was coerced by police.
The defense also sought to blame the murder on Jose Ramos, who dated a Patz family babysitter and was long considered the prime suspect. Ramos, who died in March of this year, served a lengthy prison term after being convicted of sexually abusing boys.
Hernandez, now in his mid-60s, was first tried in 2015. That jury was unable to reach a verdict because of a lone holdout juror who had doubts about the defendant's guilt. At his second trial, Hernandez was found guilty two years later of kidnapping and murdering Patz, and was sentenced to a prison term of 25 years to life.
But the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Hernandez's conviction in 2025, ruling that the trial judge had incorrectly instructed the jury and thus swayed the verdict against the defendant.
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the 2nd Circuit's action violated a 1996 federal law that places limits on the power of federal courts to grant relief to prisoners convicted in state courts.
Hernandez initially admitted to the crime without being advised of his so-called Miranda rights to avoid self-incrimination and to have an attorney present. Then, after Hernandez was read his rights and had agreed to waive them, he was videotaped twice making statements of confession.
On the second day of deliberations in the 2017 trial, the jury sent a note to Justice Maxwell Wiley, the judge in the case, asking whether jurors must disregard the two videotaped confessions if they concluded that the initial, non-Mirandized one was involuntary.
The judge wrote back: "The answer is, no," which the 2nd Circuit ruled was improper and "manifestly prejudicial."
The anniversary of Patz's disappearance, May 25, is still commemorated as National Missing Children's Day.
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe in Washington and Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
