The US Supreme Court reinstated the conviction of Pedro Hernández, a Puerto Rican man found guilty of murdering 6-year-old Etan Patz in New York in 1979. The court voted 6-3 to overturn the Second Circuit Court of Appeals' decision to vacate Hernández's conviction in 2025. The Supreme Court's decision comes after the Manhattan District Attorney's office requested the reversal.
Hernández was convicted in 2017 for the kidnapping and murder of Patz, after a first trial ended in a hung jury in 2015. He had confessed to the crime in 2012, stating that he had suffocated Patz after luring him into a basement with a soda bottle. Hernández's lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, expressed disappointment with the ruling, stating that he believes an innocent man is in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg supported the conviction, noting that the case changed a generation of New Yorkers. The case, which remains one of the most infamous child disappearances in US history, led to the declaration of May 25 as National Missing Children's Day in 1983.