Supreme Court Reinstates Pedro Hernandez Murder Conviction in Etan Patz Case

Article excerpt

The Supreme Court has reinstated the murder conviction of Pedro Hernandez in the killing of six-year-old Etan Patz, whose 1979 disappearance in lower Manhattan became one of the most haunting missing-child cases in American history. Etan vanished on May 25, 1979, the first day his parents let him walk alone to his school bus stop, and his face later became one of the first to appear on milk cartons nationwide. Hernandez, a bodega worker who lived near the Patz family, confessed to strangling the boy decades later, but his attorneys argued that confession was obtained in violation of his Miranda rights. The central legal question before the Court was whether Hernandez had properly waived those rights before speaking to investigators. Miranda rights, established by the Supreme Court's 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, require police to inform suspects of their right to remain silent and to have an attorney present before any custodial interrogation begins. A waiver of those rights must be voluntary, knowing, and intelligent to be valid in court. The Supreme Court's decision to let the conviction stand closes a long legal chapter for a case that waited more than three decades for a resolution.