Judge sets June 1 deadline for retrial of Pedro Hernandez in Etan Patz’s kidnapping, murder

Prosecutors have just over seven months to retry Pedro Hernandez, the man convicted of abducting and murdering 6-year-old Etan Patz in New York City in the 1970s, a judge ruled Friday.

The federal judge set a deadline of June 1, 2026. If jury selection for a retrial does not begin by that date, Hernandez will be released, the judge said.

The judge also wrote there was “no reason why Hernandez could not ask the New York State Supreme Court to admit him to bail in advance of any retrial.”

If prosecutors proceed with a retrial, it will be Hernandez’s third in this case. The Manhattan district attorney has declined to comment at this time.

Timeline of Etan Patz case

Etan disappeared while walking to his school bus stop in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood in 1979. His body was never found. It remained a cold case for decades until Hernandez’s arrest in 2012.

At the time, he confessed he had killed Etan after luring him into the basement of the bodega where Hernandez worked at the time. Hernandez’s attorneys have argued he struggles with mental illness and made a false confession.

He was first tried in 2015, but that trial ended in a hung jury. He was tried again from 2016 into 2017 and found guilty after nine days of jury deliberation. Hernandez was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison on charges of second-degree murder and kidnapping.

Attorneys for Hernandez appealed the verdict, arguing the jury was given incorrect instructions in response to a question about his confession.

A federal appeals court ruled in their favor, saying “the state trial court contradicted clearly established federal law and that this error was not harmless.”