Manhattan DA announces retrial after Pedro Hernandez conviction overturned

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday that it plans to retry Pedro Hernandez. man was convicted of kidnapping and murdering a 6-year-old boy decades ago.

Etan Patz disappeared after walking alone to the bus stop in New York in 1979. He was one of the first missing children to appear on milk cartons.

Hernandez confessed to the crime nearly three decades later and was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being found guilty of murder in 2017. His first trial ended in a hung jury in 2015.

“The District Attorney has determined that the available, admissible evidence supports prosecuting the defendant on charges of Second Degree Murder and First Degree Kidnapping, and the People are prepared to move forward,” Manhattan Deputy District Attorney Sarah Marquez said in a statement. he said.

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Hernandez’s defense attorneys, Harvey Fishbein and Alice Fontier, told the Associated Press that they were “convinced that Mr. Hernandez is an innocent man.”

“However, we will prepare for the hearing and present a stronger defense,” the lawyer couple added.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned Hernandez’s conviction in July, finding in 2017 that the jury did not receive a comprehensive enough explanation of its options, including that it could have disregarded Hernandez’s confessions.

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Pedro Hernandez’s court split and Etan Patz’s missing poster. (Reuters/Louis Lanzano/Pool; Reuters/Defense lawyer Alice Fontier/Handout)

Years before his conviction, Hernandez admitted to police that he lured Patz into the basement of the convenience store where he worked. Prosecutors alleged that Hernandez strangled Patz, stuffed her body into a plastic garbage bag hidden inside a box and took it out with the garbage.

The appeals court found that the trial judge gave “manifestly false” and “manifestly prejudicial” instructions to the jury in response to a question about the suspect’s confessions to police.

In October, Judge Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that Hernandez must appear for a third hearing by June 1 or he will eventually be released.

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Stanley Patz, father of 1979 murder victim 6-year-old Etan Patz (C), leaves after speaking to the media in Manhattan State Supreme Court following the sentencing of Pedro Hernandez on April 18, 2017 in New York City, USA. (Reuters/Lucas Jackson)

The court hearing is scheduled for December 1.

Brie Stimson of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.