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New York Times
a day ago
- New York Times
Etan Patz's Case Haunted New York. It's Still Not Over.
Good morning. It's Wednesday. Today we'll take a closer look at the appellate court decision that put the case of Etan Patz back in the spotlight, 46 years after he disappeared. We'll also get details on why telephone calls from inmates in New York's state prisons will soon be free. The 51 pages of the appellate court decision that put the Etan Patz case back in the spotlight are dry and legalistic, as appellate court decisions usually are. The judges made no mention of the fact that, as a former assistant district attorney put it after the decision was released on Monday, the Patz case was 'a watershed moment, almost a loss-of-innocence moment for the city.' The court overturned the conviction of Pedro Hernandez, who worked at a bodega near where Etan's school bus stopped every morning. The trial, in 2017, was his second; the jury in his first, in 2015, had deadlocked. The guilty verdict was not followed by a collective sigh of relief — perhaps because so much time had passed, perhaps it did not return things to the way they had been before Etan vanished, perhaps because it did not provide meaningful closure to a case that had haunted New York for so long. The year Etan disappeared, 1979, was a long time ago. As my colleague Michael Wilson noted, Etan, a first grader then, would be 52 years old now. New York has lived under six mayors and the nation under eight presidents since he disappeared. For New Yorkers who lived in the city in 1979, there is no forgetting the Patz case, and for those who have grown up since Etan disappeared, there is no escaping how their lives were shaped when a boy finally got a 'yes' to a question many children ask and ask again. The question was, Could he walk to the bus stop by himself? Was he old enough, big enough, city-savvy enough? The city was rougher then. There were 1,700 homicides in 1979, or an average of 4.75 a day. Last year, there were 377. 'The whole city was rethinking, really, what it had begun to assume about neighborhoods,' said Louise Mirrer, the president of New York Historical. 'The main event for parents at the time,' she added, was that those who had decided that the city was a place where they could bring up their children — 'and where they didn't have to worry about them all the time' — were 'shaken.' People wanted to believe that they could still trust their neighbors, Mirrer said. Not just the people across the hall or downstairs in your own building, but the people a child would pass on the way to a bus stop a couple of blocks away. The professor and author Jonathan Haidt told my colleague Michael Wilson that Etan's disappearance and the death of Adam Walsh, a 6-year-old who was abducted and killed in Florida two years later, had 'changed the way we raise kids' in a way that was 'very damaging to human development.' Over the years, there were reminders that kept the case in the public's mind. In 1985, an electronic screen at Broadway and 47th Street showed a photograph of Etan twice an hour. 'Last seen 5-25-79,' the caption said. 'Still missing.' It is possible to forget that the bodega where Hernandez worked was a seedy place, as one man in the neighborhood said in a story I wrote in 2012. He said that you sensed 'a distinctly hostile feeling' as soon as you walked in. The word on the street was that cockfighting went on in the basement, he said. Hernandez later moved to South Jersey and was living there when, the appeals court said, his brother-in-law 'called police with a tip about rumors that Hernandez was involved in the disappearance of Patz.' Until that moment, the appellate ruling said, 'Hernandez's life was quiet and arrest-free,' although Judge Guido Calabresi, writing for the court, noted that Hernandez 'had a documented history of mental illnesses.' Calabresi also wrote that Hernandez has a low IQ. The appeals court said the trial judge's answer to a jury note during the deliberations in 2017 had been 'clearly wrong' and 'manifestly prejudicial.' Hernandez has been serving a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. It is now up to the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, to decide whether to try him again. Weather Expect sunshine with temperatures in the mid-80s. For tonight, it will be partly cloudy with temperatures in the low 70s. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Aug. 3 (Tisha B'Av). The latest Metro news Shelters turn away pets: Many New Yorkers have been taking pets to shelters because they can no longer afford to keep them. The shelters, which have had to double up animals in some kennels and crates, will in many cases no longer take in cats, dogs and other pets. Ocasio-Cortez's campaign office is vandalized: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Bronx campaign office was defaced with a message citing the war in Gaza. The vandalism occurred days after she voted against an amendment that would have cut funding for Israel's defense capabilities. Arson charges for a pro-Palestinian activist: The federal authorities said that the man, Jakhi McCray, had sneaked into a Brooklyn parking lot last month and set fire to 10 police vehicles. After he was released on bail worth $300,000, he was taken to Manhattan Criminal Court to be arraigned on state charges related to a protest he had attended. Video shows overcrowded ICE holding cell in Manhattan: Immigrants have complained about unsanitary conditions in the facility at 26 Federal Plaza. On Tuesday, new video footage offered the first glimpse inside one of the four cells in Lower Manhattan. State prisoners' phone calls will soon be free People incarcerated in state prisons in New York are allowed three free calls a week, each lasting no more than 15 minutes. Each call beyond those three costs 2.4 cents a minute to numbers in the United States and territories like Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Starting next month, all of the calls will be free. Five other states and New York City already have similar policies. The change in New York State comes after negotiations between the state agency that runs the prisons, the Department of Corrections and Community Services, and the company that provides its telephone service, Securus Technologies. The state will pay Securus 1.5 cents a minute for each call, which the department described as one of the lowest rates in the country. The change will ease the financial burden for inmates' families and friends. Bianca Tylek, the executive director of Worth Rises, an advocacy group that seeks to dismantle the prison industry, said that New York families spend more than $13 million each year contacting their loved ones behind bars. The costs fall disproportionately on Black and brown women, according to the group. 'It's a win-win for everyone,' Ms. Tylek said. 'For families, incarcerated people, correctional officers and public safety.' METROPOLITAN diary Supermoon Dear Diary: I was walking down a street on the Upper East Side one fall weeknight, lost in some personal problem, when I heard a voice shout, 'Stop!' The voice, it turned out, belonged to a small, older woman in a maroon coat. 'Back up and look up,' she said. I did as I was told. The several steps back I took brought me out from under an awning so that suddenly I could see the moon, big and brilliant, hanging over the street. I hadn't noticed just how bright a night it was. 'It's a supermoon,' the woman said. 'I heard about it on the radio. NPR. I just had to come out and see it.' 'And,' she continued, pointing the pint container in her hand heavenward, 'why wouldn't I get myself some ice cream, too?' 'It's wonderful,' I said, and we stood right there, listening to the happy clatter from a nearby Italian restaurant and admiring the supermoon together. — Sarah Skinner Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Francis Mateo and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@ Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
New York Times
a day ago
- New York Times
D.A. Who Led Etan Patz Case Says Conviction Reversal Came as a Shock
Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who as Manhattan district attorney oversaw two trials in the disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz, said Tuesday that a federal court's reversal of the murder and kidnapping conviction in the case 'came out of left field for me.' The verdict in Etan's 1979 killing, which came after more than 30 years of investigation and prosecution, appeared to end a notorious case that transfixed New York City and the nation. But on Monday, a three-judge panel overturned the conviction, ordering that the defendant, Pedro Hernandez, be given a new trial within a 'reasonable period,' or be released from his 25-year-to-life prison sentence. Mr. Vance's case had depended heavily on several confessions by Mr. Hernandez, who has a history of mental illness. The first came before Mr. Hernandez was informed of his constitutional right to remain silent; another, which was videotaped, came shortly after. The trial judge, the appeals court found, did not appropriately instruct the jury in response to its question about the confessions. Mr. Vance said he respected the decision by the federal judges who serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, but he was 'surprised and saddened for the Patz family.' 'I still believe the decision to bring the case was absolutely the right decision,' he said, adding, 'as the D.A. I was certainly convinced myself that Pedro Hernandez killed Etan Patz, and I think that today.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CNN
2 days ago
- CNN
WHY SOME NEW YORKERS VOTED FOR TRUMP AND MAMDANI
Missing child case from 46 years ago reopened A federal appeals court overturned the verdict of Pedro Hernandez, the bodega worker who was found guilty in 2017 of kidnapping and murdering Etan Patz in 1979. Patz was 6 years old when he disappeared on the first day he was allowed to walk alone to his school bus stop in New York City.
New York Times
2 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.
ABC News
2 days ago
- ABC News
Man accused of 1979 kidnap and murder of Etan Patz in New York has conviction overturned
The man convicted of one of America's most infamous and tragic cold cases will face a fresh trial, a federal appeals court has ordered, 45 years after the presumed killing of New York schoolboy Etan Patz. Patz's disappearance on his way to a school bus stop in Manhattan rattled the city, and was unsolved for decades before Pedro Hernandez was convicted of the killing in 2017. But that conviction has now been overturned and Hernandez will face a new trial, where his confession to the crime will be under scrutiny. Here's what to know about the young boy's disappearance and why Hernandez's conviction has been overturned. Patz was a first grader who always wanted "to do everything that adults did", his mother, Julie Patz, told jurors in 2017. So on the morning of May 25, 1979, she agreed her son could walk by himself to the school bus stop, two blocks away. It was the first time he was allowed to go alone, and the last time she saw her son. When Patz did not come home from school that day, his parents reported him missing and the police searched for him for weeks. For decades, his parents kept the same apartment and even phone number in case he might try to reach them. Patz's body has never been found, and a civil court declared him dead in 2001. Hernandez was a teenager working at a convenience store in the neighbourhood when Patz vanished. Police met him while canvassing the area but didn't suspect him until 2012, when they got a tip from a relative. He had made remarks during a prayer group years earlier about having killed a child in New York. While there was no physical evidence against Hernandez, police said he confessed during a seven-hour interrogation to luring Patz into the store's basement by offering him a soft drink. Hernandez said he choked the young boy because "something just took over me". Hernandez said he put Patz, still alive, in a "garbage bag" before stuffing him into a box and leaving it outside with a pile of rubbish. In one of the recorded confessions, he added that he'd wanted to tell someone, "but I didn't know how to do it. I felt so sorry". Hernandez, however, later recanted and pleaded not guilty to murder. His lawyers said the admissions were the false imaginings of a man with mental illness, low intelligence and a propensity towards vivid hallucinations. But in 2017, Hernandez was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping. This was his second trial; the first in 2015 ended in a hung jury after 18 days of deliberations. "After all these years we finally know what dark secret you had locked in your heart," Etan's father, Stanley Patz, said at the sentencing. Hernandez's lawyers have long argued that their client's mental illness and the circumstances of his confession undermined the fairness of the 2017 trial. In a ruling on Monday, local time, a federal appeals court said the trial judge gave a "clearly wrong" and "manifestly prejudicial" response to a jury note during the trial. The note addressed how the jury should interpret recordings of the police interrogation in which Hernandez confessed. Police said he initially confessed before they read him his Miranda rights — a constitutionally mandated warning about self-incrimination. Immediately after, he was given a legally required warning that his statements could be used against him in court, and was asked to repeat his confession on tape. Several hours later, he did so again for a federal prosecutor. At the trial, jurors sent repeated queries about the multiple confessions. The last inquiry asked whether they had to disregard the two recorded confessions, if they concluded that the first one — given before the Miranda warning — was invalid. The judge said "no". The appeals court ruled that the jury should have received a more thorough explanation of its options, which could have included disregarding all of the confessions as improperly obtained. The court ordered Hernandez's release unless the 64-year-old gets a new trial within a "reasonable period". The Manhattan District Attorney's Office, which prosecuted the case, said it was reviewing the decision. Patz's missing persons campaign attracted national attention and became a cautionary tale during the 80s. The six-year-old was one of the first children whose disappearance was publicised in what became a high-profile way: on billboards and milk cartons. His case also ushered in an age of parental anxiety around child safety. Parents became more protective of kids who were once allowed to roam and play unsupervised in their neighbourhoods. The Patzs' advocacy also helped establish a national missing-children hotline. US president Ronald Reagan marked the anniversary of the boy's disappearance in 1983, proclaiming it National Missing Children's Day.
