Supreme Court Keeps Etan Patz Case Closed, Denying New Trial Bid

The Supreme Court reversed the 2nd Circuit’s ruling and upheld Pedro Hernandez’s 2017 conviction for kidnapping and murdering 6-year-old Etan Patz, denying a new-trial bid. The unsigned decision rejects claims that a trial-jury instruction could have improperly swayed verdicts, preserving the decades-old case and its tie to missing-child reforms such as AMBER Alerts and milk-carton campaigns.