Etan Patz Murder: Child Killer’s Conviction Overturned as Possible Retrial Looms

A federal judge is reviewing the overturned conviction of a New York man convicted of the 1979 murder of 6-year-old Etan Patz.

According to ABC 6, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that Pedro Hernandez should be “retried or released” after his conviction was overturned in July, due to unsound jury instruction.

A three-judge panel found that the New York judge overseeing Hernandez’s 2017 murder trial gave the jury improper instructions on Hernandez’s confession.

“When deliberating during his second trial, the jury sent the judge three different notes about Hernandez’s confessions,” an order in July detailed.

“The third note asked the trial court to ‘explain’ whether, if the jury found that Hernandez’s un-Mirandized confession ‘was not voluntary,’ it ‘must disregard’ the later confessions, including the videotaped confessions at the local Camden County Prosecutor’s Office (‘CCPO’) and the Manhattan District Attorney’s (‘DA’s’) Office.”

Along with flawed jury instruction, the appeal claimed that there were also issues with police interrogation and Hernandez’s mental health.

In return, prosecutors have requested 90 days to determine whether they will retry Hernandez. The defense is asking for the decision to be made within a month.

FILE – In this Nov. 15, 2012, file photo, Pedro Hernandez, right, appears in Manhattan criminal court with his attorney, Harvey Fishbein, in New York. Hernandez confessed in 2012 to killing the long-missing New York City boy, Etan Patz but Hernandez’s defense maintains his confessions are the false imaginings of a man who has an IQ in the lowest 2 percent of the population and has problems discerning reality from fiction. Fishbein – who has handled other murder cases involving psychiatric issues – and the prosecution differ on the extent and implications of Hernandez’s mental problems. Opening statements in Hernandez’s trial are set for Friday, Jan. 30, 2015. (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano, Pool, File)

As CrimeOnline previously reported, Hernandez, an 18-year-old bodega clerk at the time, confessed to strangling Etan after luring him from a school bus stop in New York City, by promising him a soda.

Etan’s remains have never been found, and no forensic evidence has linked Hernandez to the crime.

Police initially arrested Hernandez for second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping in 2012, but his first trial in 2015 ended with a hung jury.

In 2017, a jury deliberated for nine days before convicting him of both crimes.

Hernandez’s attorneys claimed he was mentally ill and that he only issued a confession after seven hours of police questioning.

The Manhattan DA’s office said Hernandez should remain incarcerated at Clinton Correctional Facility until the Supreme Court makes its decision.

US District Judge Colleen McMahon said she would make a ruling within a few days.

Check back for updates.

For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.

Join Nancy Grace for her new online video series designed to help you protect what you love most — your children.

[Feature Photo: FILE – This May 28, 2012, file photo shows a newspaper with a photograph of Etan Patz at a makeshift memorial in the SoHo neighborhood of New York where Patz lived before his disappearance on May 25, 1979. The memorial was set up near a building that housed a convenience store where Pedro Hernandez, accused of killing Patz, told police 33 years after they boy’s disappearance, that he choked the 6-year-old and put the still-living boy into a plastic bag, boxed up the bag and left it on a street. Opening statements in Hernandez’s trial are set for Friday, Jan. 30, 2015. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)]