Updated

Updated · The Associated Press · Jun 22

Supreme Court Reinstates Pedro Hernandez Conviction in 1979 Etan Patz Case by 6-3 Vote

Updated

Updated · The Associated Press · Jun 22

Supreme Court Reinstates Pedro Hernandez Conviction in 1979 Etan Patz Case by 6-3 Vote

Q: Does a 1996 law now block federal courts from reviewing potentially coerced confessions from state trials?

No. The 1996 law does not bar federal courts from reviewing claims that a confession in a state case was coerced or otherwise unconstitutional, but it makes overturning a state conviction much harder. The law is the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, or AEDPA. Under it, a federal court hearing a state prisoner’s habeas petition cannot simply decide for itself that the state court got the issue wrong. Relief is allowed only if the state court decision was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established U.S. Supreme Court precedent, or rested on an unreasonable view of the facts. In practice, that is a very deferential standard. That is what the Supreme Court emphasized in the Hernandez case. The justices did not say federal courts can never examine confession issues. They said the Second Circuit went too far in second-guessing New York’s handling of the jury note under AEDPA’s limits. The Court’s point was about the narrow scope of federal habeas review, not the elimination of it. So potentially coerced-confession claims remain reviewable in federal court, including Miranda and voluntariness claims. But AEDPA sharply narrows when federal judges may grant relief, especially after state courts have already ruled on the issue. The practical effect is not a complete block, but a high barrier: a prisoner must show more than legal error and usually more than a close call.

3 articles · Updated · The Associated Press · Jun 22

A 6-3 Supreme Court ruling restored Pedro Hernandez’s murder conviction in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz, reversing a federal appeals court that had thrown out the verdict.
The justices said the Second Circuit overstepped under a 1996 law limiting federal review of state criminal cases, rejecting its finding that the trial judge mishandled a jury question about Hernandez’s confessions.
That ruling halts plans for a third trial. Hernandez, 64, is serving 25 years to life after a 2017 retrial conviction; his first trial ended in a 2015 deadlock.
Hernandez’s lawyers argued his admissions were false and shaped by mental illness after hours of police questioning before Miranda warnings, but prosecutors said the appeals court had discounted a five-month trial with 66 witnesses.
Etan Patz vanished on his way to a Manhattan school bus stop on May 25, 1979, in a case that became a national symbol of missing children and helped inspire National Missing Children’s Day.