Supreme Court reinstates Pedro Hernandez conviction in Etan Patz case

The Supreme Court reinstated Pedro Hernandez’s murder conviction in the Etan Patz case on June 22, 2026, issuing a per curiam ruling in McCarthy v. Hernandez and saying the Second Circuit exceeded the narrow limits federal law places on habeas review. The justices said the lower court wrongly treated Missouri v. Seibert as if it controlled what a trial judge must tell jurors, even though Seibert dealt with police interrogation tactics, not jury instructions.

Under Miranda v. Arizona, the warning requirement applies during custodial interrogation, when a suspect is in police hands and being questioned. The cases decided in Miranda all involved questioning without a full and effective warning at the start. If police question a suspect in custody without giving that warning, the statement can be attacked in court. In Hernandez’s case, detectives began questioning him at the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office without first reading his rights, and he confessed after about seven hours. They then gave him Miranda warnings, he waived them, and he made a second videotaped confession.

Patz disappeared on May 25, 1979, at age 6 after leaving his family’s apartment in lower Manhattan to take a bus to school. He never got on the bus and was never seen alive again. The case went cold for about 20 years before resurfacing in 2012, when Hernandez’s brother-in-law reported statements Hernandez had made about his role in the disappearance. Hernandez was then taken to Camden County, New Jersey, and later to the New York County District Attorney’s Office, where he received another Miranda warning, waived it and gave another videotaped confession to an assistant district attorney. Hernandez, who was 18 when Patz vanished and had a low IQ and a history of mental illness, continued for years to confess to the murder.

His disappearance helped spur the missing-children movement, including President Ronald Reagan’s proclamation of May 25 as National Missing Children’s Day in 1983 and the creation of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 1984. Patz was also among the first missing children featured on milk cartons.