Manhattan Da’s office fights to restore a conviction in the case of the murder of Etan Patz after the court of appeal canceled the verdict

Big Apple prosecutors will ask the Supreme Court to restore a condemnation for murder for the former Bodega clerk convicted during the 1979 disappearance of Etan Patz, 6 years old – after a Federal Court of Appeal shocked the verdict in July.

The Manhattan District Prosecutor’s Office asked the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States to take care of its decision to cancel the verdict in the case of Pedro Hernandez, according to a court deposited by the post.

During the overthrow of his conviction, a panel of three circuits of three judges ordered Hernandez – which served a 25 -year sentence to perpetuity – be released unless he was tried for a third time “within a reasonable time”.

However, the decision presents “substantial legal questions”, argued the prosecutor Stephen Kress in the file.

The DA office is now “committed to requesting an exam from the Supreme Court”.

Kress demanded that the Court of Appeal awaited a deadline for the Supreme Court deposited on October 20 before referring the case to a lower level federal judge for new trial.

The new trial could be suspended indefinitely if the high court agrees to weigh on the case.

Hernandez, now 64, had argued in his appeal that the jury’s instructions during his high -level Manhattan trial were inappropriate and prejudicial the result.

“We conclude that the Court of First Instance of the State clearly contradicted the federal law and that this error was not harmless,” wrote the appeal committee in its decision.

The former convenience store has become suspect more than 30 years after the disappearance of the first year.

The disappearance of Etan had confused the authorities and fascinated the public for years after the boy disappeared from a street in Soho on May 25, 1979 – the very first time that his parents allowed him to walk alone until his bus stop.

He became one of the first children who disappeared on cartons of milk, and the anniversary of his disappearance was appointed the national day of missing children.

Hernandez only became a suspect in 2012, when the cops received a tip which he apparently admitted during a prayer group to kill a child in New York.

During a recorded interrogation on a video band, Hernandez admitted to having strangled Etan until he became soft.
“Something took care of me,” he said in one of the recorded confessions, adding that he wanted to say to someone, “but I didn’t know how to do it. I felt so sorry.”

The child’s body has never been recovered and no physical evidence has never linked Hernandez to crime.
His first trial ended in 2015 with a suspended jury.

After a new trial in 2017, he was found guilty of kidnapping and murder and sentenced to a maximum of 25 years for life.

But during the deliberations, the jurors sent a note to the judge asking if they were to ignore all the video confessions of Hernandez if they found that an earlier admission he had made before having been read his rights of Miranda was “not voluntary”.

Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Maxwell Wiley replied that “without any other explanation, that” the answer is no, “said the court of appeal.

The jury returned to its deliberations and condemned Hernandez seven days later.

The jurors should at least have been an idea of ​​subsequent confessions, said Hernandez’s lawyer.

Instead, the short response from the judge “had an undoubtedly impact on the verdict”, agreed the federal judges on Monday.

Hernandez’s legal team argued that his confessions were the result of delusions suffered as part of a mental illness.

With postal wires.