Conviction of Man in Killing of Etan Patz Is Overturned
The man, Pedro Hernandez, was convicted of murder in 2017 after he confessed to luring Etan into a basement as he walked to his school bus stop alone in SoHo and attacking him.
Mr. Hernandez was charged by the Manhattan district attorney's office, with his first trial in 2015 ending in a hung jury. In 2017, a Manhattan jury convicted Mr. Hernandez on the ninth day of deliberations, after which the jury foreman said 'deliberations were difficult.'
Mr. Hernandez's lawyers had argued in the appeal that the trial court's instructions to the jury were improper and prejudiced the verdict.
'We conclude that the state trial court contradicted clearly established federal law and that this error was not harmless,' a three-judge appeals panel held in a ruling on Monday.
Efforts to reach the Manhattan district attorney's office for comment were not immediately successful.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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Brain trauma is not about the past: the successes, accomplishments, accolades. It's not even about losses. It's a muddy, rutty, hands and knees crawl up to the first rung of the ladder, and up each rung after that. There is no cure. I'm sharing this story not because I think it is exceptional, but because I know it is not. Many others with similar stories can't write because they're more disabled than I am or because they lost their lives. We all have plaque in our brain — some of us know it. Plaque can advance like armies in the night, taking more and more of us, leaving less and less. You take a detour when you see us coming, and think we don't notice, but we do. In 2021, the latest year for which there are numbers, the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration (NHSTA) reported 401,520 Americans were killed or injured due to someone driving while drunk. Also according to NHSTA, two out of three Americans will be impacted by drunk driving in their lifetime. 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This would be a different story if I regained my former life, complete with my former mind. I didn't. Eighteen years post-accident. I still think with a stutter, speak with a limp, and have less usable space in my brain, so I run out of memory fast. Today I had two coins in my hand. One was a dime and one was a nickel, and I didn't know which was which. I can spackle all I want but underneath I'm still broken. I frustrate others by leaning on them and by not leaning on them, and baffle them when I seem normal and when I don't. It takes decades to build a life, and seconds to destroy it. The next time someone warns you to be careful when driving home from a night out, don't roll your eyes. Heed their warning. Disabled people are the single largest minority in the world, and likely the least heard from. We are also the only minority anyone can join at any time. Trust me, you won't want to be disabled — or to take someone's life. Judith Hannah Weiss freelanced for 25 years, writing print and broadcast promotion for New York, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue and other major media. In 2006, she was hit by a drunk driver, which put things on a long pause. Her post-accident work has appeared on NBC News and in The Washington Post, The Oldster, Iowa Review, The Rumpus, Dorothy Parker's Ashes, Memoir Monday and The Pulse. You can find her on Substack at and at This article originally appeared on HuffPost in April 2024. Also in Goodful: Also in Goodful: Also in Goodful:
