The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday reinstated the murder conviction of Pedro Hernandez, 64, for the 1979 kidnapping and death of 6-year-old Etan Patz, siding with New York prosecutors in a 6-3 decision that reversed a lower appeals court ruling.
The three liberal justices — Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — dissented, according to United Press International.
Hernandez was convicted in 2017 of kidnapping and murdering Patz in a New York state court and sentenced to 25 years to life. Patz disappeared on May 25, 1979, while walking to a school bus stop in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. His body was never found.
Investigators identified Hernandez as a suspect in 2012. At the time of the boy’s disappearance, Hernandez worked at a convenience store near the bus stop. In his confession, Hernandez said he lured Patz into the store’s basement, strangled him and discarded his body in an alley.
Hernandez’s lawyers have argued that his confession was false, saying he suffers from mental illness and was questioned by police for about seven hours before being read his Miranda rights.
In July 2025, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Hernandez, finding that the presiding judge, New York State Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley, had given a “clearly wrong” and “manifestly prejudicial” response to a key jury question, according to The Guardian. Jurors had asked whether they must disregard Hernandez’s later confessions if they found that an earlier one, made before he was advised of his rights, was involuntary. The judge replied that “the answer is no.”
The Supreme Court disagreed with the appeals court’s reasoning. In its ruling, the high court said: “The Second Circuit exceeded its authority in holding that Hernandez is entitled to relief.” The ruling added that the appeals panel’s opinion “appears to reflect serious doubt about the reliability of Hernandez’s confessions, but [federal law] does not allow a federal habeas court to disturb a state-court conviction based on such an evaluation of the evidence.”
Hernandez’s lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, said the Supreme Court’s decision means his client will not receive a new trial. “We firmly believe that an innocent man is in jail for a crime that he did not commit,” Fishbein said in a statement, according to The New York Times.
In a separate statement, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg praised the decision. “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, according to The Guardian.
Hernandez was first tried in 2015, but the case ended in a mistrial after jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict. He has been imprisoned at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, according to UPI.
MSI previously reported on developments in the case — including a judge’s decision to decline dismissing charges and the death of former suspect Jose Ramos — in a prior article from April.