The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 22, 2026, that Pedro Hernandez's murder conviction in the death of six-year-old Etan Patz must be restored. A lower court had thrown out the conviction in 2025, but the Supreme Court reversed that decision.

Hernandez was sentenced to 25 years-to-life after being convicted of kidnapping and murder. The crime itself happened in May 1979, when Etan Patz disappeared while walking to his school bus stop alone in lower Manhattan. His case became one of the first missing-child cases that captured national attention and led to major changes in how police search for missing children.

Why did the lower court throw out the conviction in the first place? The judges said the trial judge had made mistakes in how he ran the trial. This distinction matters: the lower court didn't say there wasn't enough evidence to prove Hernandez guilty. Instead, it said the judge made procedural mistakes — errors in following the rules of how a trial should be conducted. Because of this difference, the government was allowed to ask the Supreme Court to put the conviction back in place. If the lower court had simply said "the evidence wasn't strong enough," Hernandez couldn't be retried due to protections against being tried twice for the same crime.

Manhattan's top prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, said he was pleased with the Supreme Court's decision and called it a confirmation that the original trial was correct. The 6-3 vote split along the Court's usual ideological lines — the six more conservative justices voted one way, the three more liberal justices another. But the Supreme Court didn't issue a written opinion explaining its reasoning, which means we don't know exactly why each justice voted the way they did.

This case took a very long time to resolve. Etan went missing in 1979, but Hernandez — a worker at a local bodega who had lived nearby — wasn't arrested until 2012, when police reopened the investigation. His first trial in 2015 ended with jurors unable to agree on a verdict. In a second trial, he was convicted. Now, after the lower court threw out that conviction and the Supreme Court put it back, the conviction stands.

What happens next depends on what Hernandez does. Since the lower court only said there were procedural mistakes (not that the evidence was weak), Hernandez doesn't automatically get a new trial. His conviction stays. He could try other legal challenges, but that's something he and his lawyers would have to decide.

The Etan Patz case became famous long before this Supreme Court ruling. His face appeared on milk cartons across America. His disappearance led to the creation of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and helped push Congress to pass the Missing Children Act in 1982. The case shows something about older murder cases: even when a jury convicts someone, these convictions can be overturned on appeal because they often rely heavily on confessions and circumstantial evidence. This case took over thirty years to go from crime to conviction, and then just a few more years to be overturned and restored.

Under New York law, Hernandez's 25-year sentence means he could eventually become eligible for parole. The practical effect of today's ruling will likely be felt most in any other legal cases or appeals he may have pending.