Conviction of Etan Patz killer Pedro Hernandez overturned, new trial ordered

Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News on Jul 21, 2025

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NEW YORK — A federal appeals court on Monday ordered Pedro Hernandez, the SoHo bodega clerk convicted of kidnapping and murdering 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979, get a new trial or be freed from custody — overturning his conviction and reopening the book on one of the city’s most notorious slayings.

Hernandez is currently serving out a life sentence for the decades-old killing that horrified the city and reverberated around the country.

After his first trial ended in a mistrial in 2015, prosecutors retried the case, leading to his 2017 conviction for preying upon little Etan as the child walked alone to his school bus stop for the first time on May 25, 1979.

Emily Tuttle, a spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, said, “We are reviewing the decision” as it weighs whether to retry the case.

Hernandez’s appeal contended that an instruction by the trial court judge in response to a jury note improperly ignored Supreme Court precedent. A three-judge panel at the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.

“We conclude that the state trial court contradicted clearly established federal law and that this error was not harmless under the deferential standard applied to ... habeas petitions,” the panel wrote.

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