Last week, the Federal Appeal Court canceled Pedro Hernandez’s condemnation for killing and abduction of Eton Patz, a 6-year-old New York boy, who disappeared in 1979 in one of the most famous cases of disappeared in the US history.
The panel of three judges ruled that the court judge of the court gave the jury “clearly inaccurate” recommendations regarding Hernandez’s recognition made before he was informed of his rights. The jury asked if they decided the first recognition of the involuntary, it meant that they should ignore the two videos that came afterwards.
The court judge stated that “no answer” and offered no additional explanation.
In their opinion, the appellation judges said that, doing so, “the state court contradicted a clearly established federal law.” They threw away Hernandez’s condemnation and ordered to release or return. He has now 64 years old and has served 13 years of punishment of a 25-year life in the case that pursued New York for decades.
Body The decision on 51 pages Echo published by Propublica since 2013, before Hernandez was condemned that raised questions about the truth and legality of his confessions.
We reported that Hernandez met many criteria for a person who is prone to false admissions, a growing phenomenon and a leading cause of illegal criminal record. We also found that Hernandez’s statements to law enforcement and others have been controversial over the years and did not correspond to the known facts of the case.
On the morning of May 29, 1979, Rata allowed to go alone to her school stop in two quarters and then disappeared. His disappearance lit the national concern around the missing children when he became one of the first “Children with milk” And his image was lined all over New York.
There was a mass search, and law enforcement agencies spent thousands of hours, looking for it: the divers plunged into the East, looking for their remnants, performing the hint of the psyche. The presenter was pursued to Israel. But there were no arrests. No payments have been made.
In 2012, the New York and the FBI police suddenly and very noticeably taken measures for another advantage, digging a cellar of the workshop near the Pac family, used by a carpenter who knew Ethan and was briefly considered the suspect.
Nothing came out of digging, but the splash of the media pushed one of Hernandez’s relatives to call the police with the parade of the rumors that he played a role in Pac.
New York police arrived at Hernandez’s house in New Jersey on the morning of May 23, 2012 and brought him to a local prosecutor’s office to question it. In the following hours, Hernandez asked to return home several times, said that the officers tried to deceive him, squeezed, squeezed into his stomach, lay on the floor in the fetal position, had fentanyl, located on his chest to treat his chronic pain, and mentioned his diagnoses of mental illness. After more than six hours he told the officers that he “did it”.
He said he offered Patsa soda to lure him in the basement of Bodegi where he worked. He said he was breathing the boy, put his body in a garbage bag, put the bag in the box and left around the angle with a wide daylight.
And only after that recognition did the officers read Hernandez their rights. They then made him repeat his statement in two recorded video interviews over the next 24 hours. The stories he said contained several inconsistencies.
The federal court found that the court’s instructions on the court of the trial of the jury about the “clearly inaccurate” that the jury should give more careful instructions and that it could really ignore the fixed denominations.
The jury who asked about an unknown recognition for the second of nine days of discussion, “clearly fought with what weighing, if any, to give confessions,” the court wrote.
PROPUBLICA covered Early phases of the case against Hernandez He widely interviewed the people he allegedly confessed over the years and talked to various legal and psychological experts about how the police tactics could cause false confessions.
We found early that Hernandez’s previous claims of harming the child not only contradicted each other, but also little like details of his recognition to the police. One day, for example, he said he had killed a black baby. Patz was white.
We also learned that Bodeg Hernandez worked when he became a kind of police center For officers looking for Pats. Hernandez said in one of his confessions that he threw a bag for the boy for the refrigerator. It has never been found.
Experts told us that several factors often play in the creation of false admissions and that the situation with Hernandez had many of them: he had a low IQ, in history had a history of mental illness and confessed to a loud crime, where many details were widely known over a long and long interrogation.
In their decision, the judge took note of the many of these characteristics, which, in their opinion, made it more important for the jury that the jury had the proper instructions for assessing admissions.
Propublica also emphasized how the judge of the court Maxwell Willie held a hearing at the beginning of the proceedings to determine for himself Or correctly informed Hernandez about his rights And if he had the opportunity to give them meaningfully. He decided that recognition could be used. Later Willi, formerly Manhattan prosecutor, Limited questions This can be asked about it and keep some following hearings on the matter Attracting fire from multiple information organizations. Willie, who retired now did not respond to the calls for comments.
In the e -mail, Cyrus Vens -Young, who considered the case against Hernandez as a prosecutor of the Manhattan district, stated that it was “extremely difficult, given the time but also very strong.”
He said the recent decision was a surprise because other appeal courts considered and sentenced and sentence.
“Of course, the jury heard the considerable testimony of the experts from both the prosecution and the defense, and considered both, and legal instructions during the reflections and before the verdict,” he said, adding that he continues to believe that Hernandez is guilty and that his thoughts with the Pats and Ethan family. “
Now the successor of Vens Elwin Bragg will have to decide whether to repeat Hernandez for the third time. A The first of his two lawsuits ended in a jury hanged.
In a statement by the Bragg Office, the press -secretary only said: “We are considering the decision.”
