The police department of New York City supplied this poster of missing Manhattan schoolboy Etan Patz, who disappeared in 1979 on his way to school. On Monday, the Supreme Court restored the conviction of the man who confessed to killing the boy. File Photo courtesy NYPD | License Photo
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday restored the murder conviction of a man who kidnapped and killed 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979.
The high court voted 6-3 in favor of restoring the conviction of Pedro Hernandez, who was also found guilty of kidnapping the boy in Lower Manhattan. The three liberal justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, dissented.
Hernandez, a disabled factory worker from New Jersey — whose lawyers argued had low intelligence and a history of mental illness — confessed twice to police in 2012 that he kidnapped Etan as the boy walked to a school bus stop in Manhattan. He said he lured Etan into a bodega basement where he strangled him. The boy’s body was never found.
Defense attorneys argued Hernandez confessed due to mental illness and pressure from police.
Hernandez has been imprisoned at the state Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemore, N.Y.
In July 2025, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Hernandez after determining that New York State Supreme Court Judge Maxwell Wiley gave the jury improper instructions during the initial 2017 trial.
Hernandez’s lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, said the Supreme Court’s decision means his client won’t receive a new trial.
“We firmly believe that an innocent man is in jail for a crime that he did not commit,” he said in a statement to The New York Times.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg said Etan’s case, which received extensive attention nationwide, “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,” he said.
This week in Washington
President Donald Trump presents a Medal of Honor to Tom Ripley on behalf of his father, John W. Ripley, during a Medal of Honor award ceremony in the East Room of the White House on Thursday. Photo by Aaron Schwartz/UPI | License Photo
