McCarthy v. Hernandez

608 U. S. 809 (2026) · 6/22/26

The Second Circuit exceeded its authority in holding that Hernandez is entitled to habeas relief under 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1); no clearly established federal law required the trial court to instruct the jury about the rule that Justice Kennedy adopted in Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U. S. 600, and the Second Circuit erred in holding otherwise.

In 2017, a New York jury found Pedro Hernandez guilty of kidnapping and murdering 6-year-old Etan Patz decades earlier. At issue during the trial, on direct appeal, and on habeas review were the trial court's jury instructions concerning various confessions to the crime by Hernandez. When detectives first questioned Hernandez about the crime at the Camden County Prosecutor's Office (CCPO), they did so without first administering a Miranda warning, see Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, and Hernandez, a man with a low IQ and a history of mental illness, eventually confessed to strangling Patz…

Hernandez next fled an application for a writ of habeas corpus in Federal District Court. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) imposes strict limits on federal courts' power to grant habeas relief to a prisoner convicted in state court. As relevant here, a federal court may grant habeas relief on a claim that a state court has resolved on the merits only if that decision was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1). Hernandez argued that the Appellate Division had violated clearly…