McCarthy v. Hernandez · ¶1

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 and dumping his body. The detectives then read Hernandez his Miranda rights, and he waived those rights and made a second, videotaped confession. Hernandez later gave another videotaped confession to an assistant district attorney in New York, and he continued to confess to Patz's murder to his…

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