New York — New York City prosecutors asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to reappoint A Conviction of murder In the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
Even as prosecutors prepare to retry the accused man, Pedro Hernandez, they hope the Supreme Court will shorten that process by reinstating his 2017 conviction. Federal appeals court Overturn the ruling This summer, he made a mistake in the way a New York trial judge answered a question from a jury.
“Invalidating a state jury’s verdict on such a slender reed is a violation” of the law that limits the time federal courts can overturn a state court conviction, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and some high-ranking lawmakers wrote in the suit.
They asked the Supreme Court, essentially, to overturn the reversal of Hernandez’s conviction. Prosecutors noted that this came after a five-month trial with 66 witnesses, some of whom have since died.
A message seeking comment was sent to Hernandez’s attorney.
Meanwhile, prosecutors and Hernandez’s attorneys are scheduled to be in court Friday to discuss the timeline and steps leading up to a retrial. Another judge will preside over the session, because the previous judge in the case is no longer on the bench.
Under federal court rulings in the case, jury selection must begin by June 1, or Hernandez must be released from prison. He is now 64 years old, serving a sentence of 25 years or life in prison.
Hernandez confessed to the crime during police interrogation, but his lawyer He says he falsely confessed Because of a Mental illness Which made him hallucinate sometimes. They confirmed that the confession came after the police interrogated him for approximately seven hours before reading him his rights and recording the interview. Hernandez then repeated his confession on the tape at least twice.
Etan disappeared while walking to a school bus stop in midtown Manhattan on May 25, 1979. Hernandez was working at a nearby convenience store at the time, but the Maple Shade, New Jersey, resident didn’t become a suspect until 2012.
Etan was among the first missing children to appear on milk cartons, and the anniversary of his disappearance became National Missing Children’s Day.
Hernandez has already been tried twice. Jury A dead end in 2015and then a different panel of jurors She convicted him in a retrial in 2017.
During deliberations, jurors in 2017 asked a complicated question: If they decided Hernandez did not voluntarily confess when his rights had not yet been read, should they ignore his other confessions? The judge then simply responded: “The answer is no.” The jury went to convict.
In overturning that ruling, the appeals court said the jury’s question should have received a more comprehensive answer, including the possibility of excluding all confessions.