Latest news with #AlvinBragg
New York Post
3 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Columbia's finally cracking down on its Jew-hating goons. What took so long?
It sure is about time: Columbia University is finally starting to deal with the vile, antisemitic hooligans on its campus. What took so long? The Ivy League school is set to discipline more than 70 pro-Palestinian students for rampaging through Butler Library in May and for their involvement in last year's encampment. Most face suspensions of one to three years, and some will be permanently expelled. The punishments are well-deserved: Students in the library were cramming for final exams last May. The tuition money they forked over gave them the right to use that library and the rest of Columbia's facilities. What right did the Keffiyeh Klan have to deny these kids what they paid for? Their antics last year were even more selfish and outrageous. They set up tents, preventing others from using public campus space, took over an academic building and harassed Jews. 'To create a thriving academic community, there must be respect for each other and the institution's fundamental work, policies and rules,' a Columbia spokesperson said. Hear, hear! The agitators should be grateful their punishments are only suspensions and expulsions: Last year, cops arrested some of them after they took over Hamilton Hall, yet bleeding-heart Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg dropped the charges against most of them. Columbia's action comes after the school announced other small steps to curb campus Jew-hatred. It plans to hire more staff to investigate discrimination cases, for example, and will no longer meet with a virulent anti-Israel student group behind most of the chaos. Keep up with today's most important news Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update. Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters It also plans new antisemitism training for students and staff. Most notably, it's adopting a broader definition of 'antisemitism' that aligns with what the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance uses. That includes expressing 'hatred toward Jews,' whether physically or rhetorically, slurring Israel as racist and opposing the right of Jews to have a state of their own, Holocaust denial and justifying the 'killing or harming' of Jews based on 'radical ideology.' These are certainly moves in the right direction. But there's no excuse for waiting until now to act: Vicious antisemitism exploded almost instantly after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of innocent Israelis. That was almost two years ago. Indeed, not until after Team Trump pulled $400 million of federal funds did Columbia even start to think about taking meaningful measures to right the ship. And don't celebrate the new moves too much, either. The school's got a long way to go to cleanse its record of tolerating — even promoting — antisemitism. Remember: Its armies of anti-American, anti-West, anti-Israel, Jew-hating professors remain entrenched. They'll continue to decry 'settler-colonialism' and 'apartheid' and brainwash impressionable young minds. And it's resisted other steps, too, like enforcing a mask ban on students for students who wear them to escape accountability and terrorize others. Most of all, it's still run by an arrogant, hostile board and an acting president, Claire Shipman, who's tarnished by a putrid record — including statements that pooh-poohed campus Jew-hatred and sought to replace a Jewish trustee with someone who's Middle Eastern or Arabic descent. Columbia clearly has its work cut out for it. Let's hope its latest moves are just the first of many more.
New York Times
3 days ago
- New York Times
The Missing Boy Whose Case Keeps Coming Back
Etan Patz would be 52 now, far older than his parents on the day he disappeared. And yet his story remains unfinished, unclear, unquiet. The smiling face of the 6-year-old boy from countless 'Missing' posters in 1979 — a year that rewrote the norms of modern parenting — returns, yet again, to announce a new twist in the case that seems to never end. That twist arrived Monday when a federal appeals court overturned the 2017 conviction of Pedro Hernandez, a troubled former stock clerk at the bodega near Etan's home in SoHo where he disappeared on the way to school. The court found fault with the trial court's instructions to the jury in 2017 and ordered either a new trial or Mr. Hernandez's release, a decision that will fall to the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg. The arrest of Mr. Hernandez in 2012 followed untold hours of police investigation that spanned decades. But then there was a mistrial — hung jury — and, only after a second trial, a conviction. The jury foreman said the deliberations had been fraught. Now, eight years later, there is the prospect of a third trial in a case that can't seem to stay closed. 'Jesus Christ,' said Louis K. Meisel, reacting to the decision and probably speaking for many. He owns the art gallery that Etan walked past for the last time on that fateful morning. He has been involved in the investigation since it began. He saw nothing and knew nothing, but the whole terrible thing happened on his turf. 'His mother watched him cross the street, and I owned the rest of the street,' he said. 'I don't know what to say. I'm surprised as hell.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Judge orders new trial in famous case of boy murdered in 1979
Pedro Hernandez, the man convicted of kidnapping and murdering Etan Patz in 1979, should be retried or released, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based its decision on a flawed jury instruction given by a New York state judge about Hernandez's purported confessions. Hernandez, 64, is currently in state prison serving a sentence of 25 years to life after he was convicted in 2017 of kidnapping and murdering Patz, the 6-year-old boy whose face was the first placed on a milk carton to seek public help finding missing children. A spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said, "We are reviewing the decision." Because of the lack of physical evidence, the trial -- Hernandez's second, after the first jury hung -- hinged entirely on Hernandez's purported confessions to luring Etan into a basement as he walked to his school bus stop alone in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood. MORE: Etan Patz Suspect Arrested 33 Years After Boy Vanished in New York Hernandez, who has a documented history of mental illnesses and a low IQ, initially confessed after seven hours of questioning by three police officers. Immediately after Hernandez confessed, the police administered Miranda warnings, began a video recording and had Hernandez repeat his confession on tape. He did so again, several hours later, to an assistant district attorney. When deliberating, the jury sent the judge three different notes about Hernandez's confessions. One of them asked the judge to explain whether, if the jury found that Hernandez's confession before he was read his rights "was not voluntary," it "must disregard" the later confessions. The judge responded, without further explanation, "the answer is, no." The federal appeals court concluded "the state trial court's instruction was clearly wrong" and "that the error was manifestly prejudicial." The court said Hernandez must be released or retried within a reasonable amount of time. "For more than 13 years, Pedro Hernandez has been in prison for a crime he did not commit and based on a conviction that the Second Circuit has now made clear was obtained in clear violation of law," Hernandez's appellate lawyer, Ted Diskant, at McDermott Will & Emery, said in a statement. "We are grateful the Court has now given Pedro a chance to get his life back, and I call upon the Manhattan District Attorney's Office to drop these misguided charges and focus their efforts where they belong: on finding those actually responsible for disappearance of Etan Patz." Hernandez, a stock boy at a local convenience store, was accused of luring Patz to the basement with a bottle of soda. Patz vanished on the first day he was allowed to walk to the school bus stop alone on May 25, 1979. His body has never been found.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
US appeals court overturns murder-kidnapping conviction in 1979 missing child case
By Steve Gorman (Reuters) -A federal appeals court on Monday overturned the conviction of a former Manhattan bodega clerk found guilty of kidnapping and murdering Ethan Patz, a 6-year-old boy whose 1979 disappearance stoked national fears about missing and abducted children. A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Pedro Hernandez, serving a prison sentence of 25 years to life, released from custody unless the state grants him a new trial within a time frame deemed "reasonable" by a federal judge. It will be up to the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to decide whether to seek what would be a third trial in a case that dates back nearly a quarter-century and was originally brought by Bragg's predecessor, Cyrus Vance. A spokesperson for the DA's office, Emily Tuttle, said "we are reviewing the decision." In a 51-page response to a habeas petition filed on his behalf, the appellate panel sided with Hernandez in ruling that a state trial judge contradicted federal law in his instruction to jurors during their deliberations and thus swayed the verdict against the defendant. The instruction at issue centered on the jury's question as to how it should treat statements of confession Hernandez gave during hours of interrogation by investigators without a lawyer present. Hernandez, now 64, was found guilty in 2017 of kidnapping and murdering Patz, who vanished nearly 40 years earlier as he walked alone for the first time to a school bus stop two blocks from his home in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood on May 25, 1979. The boy, who was never found, became one of the first missing children whose faces would become ubiquitous as emblems printed on the sides of milk cartons to publicize their disappearance in hopes of stirring investigative tips. The mystery of the Patz case captured U.S. media attention and endured as one of the country's most infamous child disappearances until police arrested Hernandez in May 2012. Because of a lack of physical evidence or contemporary witnesses in the case, the 2016-2017 trial - Hernandez's second after the first ended in a hung jury in 2015 - hinged almost entirely on his purported confessions. Hernandez, who worked in a bodega near the bus stop and was 18 at the time, told investigators he strangled the boy and then placed his body in a box left in a trash pick-up area outside the store. His lawyers argued the admission was the result of police coercion as well as severe mental illness that altered his perceptions of reality, making him especially susceptible to confessionary delusions and hallucinations. According to case records, Hernandez initially admitted to the crime without being advised of his so-called Miranda rights to avoid self-incrimination and to have an attorney present. Then, after he was read his rights and had agreed to waive them, he was videotaped twice making statements of confession. On the second day of deliberations in the 2017 trial, the jury sent a note to the judge asking whether jurors must disregard the two videotaped confessions if they concluded that this initial, non-Mirandized one was involuntary. The judge wrote back: "The answer is, no," which the appeals court ruled was both improper and "manifestly prejudicial." The verdict against Hernandez was returned after seven more days of deliberation. Jurors ultimately rejected "substantial evidence" presented by the defense pointing to another man who was long considered a suspect, Jose Ramos, a convicted pedophile and boyfriend of Patz's babysitter, according to an account of the case in the appeals court ruling.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Murder conviction in Etan Patz killing overturned, new trial ordered for Pedro Hernandez
NEW YORK — The conviction of Pedro Hernandez, the SoHo bodega clerk found guilty in the 1979 kidnapping and murder of 6-year-old Etan Patz, was overturned by a federal appeals court Monday — reopening the book on one of the city's most notorious slayings. Hernandez, now 64, is currently serving 25 years to life for the decades-old killing that horrified the city and reverberated around the country. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the judge at Hernandez's 2017 trial gave improper instructions to the jury, warranting either a new trial or his release from custody. Emily Tuttle, a spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, said, 'We are reviewing the decision.' Little Etan's cherubic face was one of the first to appear on the side of a milk carton in the 1980s campaign to find missing children. His devastating disappearance in broad daylight 46 years ago is seen as key contributor to a shift to 'helicopter parenting' across the U.S. President Ronald Reagan made the anniversary of his disappearance National Missing Children Day in 1982. The Daily News reached out to Etan's parents, Stan and Julie Patz, for comment on Monday's ruling, but they have not yet responded to the decision. They spent decades trying to get justice for their son and advocating for missing children across the country. Hernandez's appeal contended that an instruction by the trial court judge in response to a jury note about his alleged confessions improperly ignored Supreme Court precedent. A three-judge panel agreed. 'We conclude that the state trial court contradicted clearly established federal law and that this error was not harmless,' the panel wrote. After Hernandez's first trial ended in a mistrial in 2015 when a single holdout refused to convict, Manhattan prosecutors retried the case, leading to his 2017 conviction for felony murder and kidnapping for preying upon little Etan as the child walked alone to his school bus stop for the first time on May 25, 1979. Authorities first set their sights on Hernandez in 2012, when a tipster called cops alleging he had previously confessed to the crime. Hernandez, following his arrest, admitted to police that when he was himself a teen, he had lured Etan to the basement of the shop where he worked on West Broadway and Prince St. with a bottle of soda, and choked him. Hernandez claimed he disposed of Etan, still gasping for air, in a plastic bag and a box and left it on a staircase on Thompson St. alley. The child's mother discovered he'd never made it as far as the bus stop when he didn't return home from school. Etan, whose body was never found, wasn't declared dead until 2001. The prosecution relied heavily on Hernandez's confessions at both of his trials, lacking physical evidence and eyewitness testimony. "Hernandez, who has a documented history of mental illnesses and a low intelligence quotient ('IQ'), initially confessed after approximately seven hours of unwarned questioning by three police officers. Immediately after Hernandez confessed, the police administered Miranda warnings, began a video recording, and had Hernandez repeat his confession on tape. "He did so again, several hours later, to an assistant district attorney. At trial, the prosecution discussed and played these videos repeatedly,' Monday's appeals court described Hernandez's confessions. While deliberating, jurors asked the court to explain whether, if they found that Hernandez's confessions before he was read his Miranda rights were involuntary, they must disregard his post-Miranda confessions. The judge responded, 'No.' The 2nd Circuit on Monday cited precedent holding unconstitutional the law enforcement tactic of intentionally obtaining an inadmissible confession, administering a Miranda warning, and then having the suspect repeat the confession. 'Despite the jury's note seeking an 'expla[nation]' as to how it was to assess Hernandez's subsequent statements, the trial court provided none,' the panel wrote. 'Indeed, the answer 'no' was manifestly inaccurate, dramatically so.' Hernandez's lawyers have long argued that he is profoundly mentally ill and that his confessions under interrogation, which he later recanted, should not have been taken at face value. His attorney, Harvey Fishbein, after the verdict in 2018, remarked, 'I hate to say it, but we're confident we'll be back here someday.' 'For more than 13 years, Pedro Hernandez has been in prison for a crime he did not commit and based on a conviction that the 2nd Circuit has now made clear was obtained in clear violation of law,' Fishbein said in a statement Monday. 'We are grateful the court has now given Pedro a chance to get his life back, and I call upon the Manhattan district attorney's office to drop these misguided charges and focus their efforts where they belong: on finding those actually responsible for the disappearance of Etan Patz.' _____
