The U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 on June 22, 2026, to reinstate Pedro Hernandez's conviction for the kidnapping and felony murder of six-year-old Etan Patz, reversing a Second Circuit ruling that had thrown out the verdict in 2025.

Hernandez had been sentenced to 25 years-to-life by the trial court following his conviction on both charges. The case began in May 1979, when Etan Patz disappeared after walking to his school bus stop alone in lower Manhattan — one of the first missing-child cases to receive sustained national attention and a catalyst for changes in how law enforcement handles such disappearances.

The Second Circuit had overturned Hernandez's conviction in 2025, concluding that the trial judge had incorrectly handled aspects of the proceedings. This distinction matters legally: the appellate court found procedural error rather than determining the evidence was insufficient to prove guilt. Because the error was procedural, the government could petition for reinstatement without running into the double-jeopardy protection that bars retrying someone when a court finds no adequate evidence of guilt. The Supreme Court used a summary reversal — a mechanism it reserves for cases it believes are straightforward enough to need no full briefing or oral argument.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg welcomed the decision in a statement framing it as an affirmation of the original trial. The 6-3 vote tracked the Court's established ideological divisions, though the summary order included no majority opinion explaining the justices' reasoning. This means the dissenters' objections also remain unexplained in the public record.

The Hernandez prosecution consumed decades. Etan vanished in 1979, but Hernandez — a bodega worker who lived in the neighborhood then — was not arrested until 2012 following a renewed investigation. His first trial in 2015 ended in a hung jury. A second trial produced the conviction that the Second Circuit overturned and the Supreme Court has now restored.

The procedural history shapes what comes next. Because the Second Circuit's reversal rested on trial error rather than insufficient evidence, Hernandez has no automatic right to a new trial from today's ruling — his conviction stands. Whether he pursues further collateral challenges, and on what grounds, will determine if this closes the legal chapter or opens another.

What matters here beyond the immediate parties: the Court's summary reversal signals impatience with the Second Circuit's trial-error analysis, even without a fully reasoned opinion. Summary reversals carry limited weight as precedent — their brevity works against them — but they communicate clearly that the majority viewed the lower court's reasoning as incorrect.

The Patz case occupied an unusual place in American legal and cultural memory long before reaching this point. Etan's image appeared on milk cartons. His disappearance helped drive the creation of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and prompted Congress to pass the Missing Children Act of 1982. The compressed timeline — more than three decades from crime to conviction, then reversal, then reinstatement within a few years — illustrates a vulnerability of cold-case prosecutions. These cases often depend heavily on confession evidence and circumstantial details, which generate appellate challenges even after juries convict.

Hernandez's 25-years-to-life sentence, now restored, means his parole eligibility will be governed by New York's sentencing rules. Given when he entered prison, the practical consequences of today's ruling will surface most immediately in any pending appeals or post-conviction motions that had paused while awaiting the Supreme Court's action.