On Monday, the Supreme Court reinstated a murder conviction of a New York man accused of killing Etan Patz, a 6-year-old who became one of the inspirations behind the nation’s first milk carton campaign.
According to PBS, in a 6-3 decision, the justices granted the state’s request to reinstate 65-year-old Pablo Hernandez’s convictions on two counts of second-degree murder and one count of first-degree kidnapping.
The legal battle over the landmark conviction started when a federal appeals court tossed out the guilty verdict against Hernandez in 2025, after a New York trial judge gave flawed and prejudicial jury instructions.
The Supreme Court explained that the lower appeals court went too far by overturning the verdict, clarified that a 1996 federal law explicitly prohibits federal judges from stepping in to micromanage local state trials.
On May 25, 1979, Etan vanished while walking a few block from his SoHo, Manhattan, home to a school bus stop at at West Broadway and Prince Street.
His mother, Julie Patz, later told investigators that she watched him from their apartment as Etan walked down the street and turned the corner.
Despite exhaustive search efforts, Etan has never been found.
In 2012, Hernandez, confessed to killing Etan after luring him into a bodega shop basement, located at West Broadway and Prince Street, with the promise of a soda.
Hernandez stated that as he lured Etan down the basement steps, “something took over” him and he choked the boy to death, A&E reports.
In 2015, Hernandez’s first trial ended in a mistrial, following a deadlocked jury.
During Hernandez’s second trial in 2017, the defense claimed that authorities spent 12 hours interrogating Hernandez, who reportedly has schizotypal personality disorder, with a low IQ and bouts of hallucinations.
The jury rejected the defense’s claim that Hernandez’s hallucinations led him to a false confession, before the federal appeals court threw out the case in 2025.
The high court’s latest decision permanently reinstates the state verdict, ensuring Hernandez remains imprisoned behind bars at the Elmira Correctional Facility.
Hernandez will get a possible chance for parole in 2037.
[Featured image: Etan Patz/Handout via Stanley Patz]
