The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals based its decision on a flawed jury instruction given by a New York State judge about Hernandez's purported confessions.
Hernandez, 64, is currently in state prison serving a twenty five years to life sentence after he was convicted in 2017 of kidnapping and murdering Patz, the six year old boy whose face was the first placed on a milk carton to seek public help finding missing children.
Because of the lack of physical evidence, the trial-Hernandez's second, after the first jury hung-hinged entirely on Hernandez's purported confessions to luring little Etan into a basement as he walked to his school bus stop alone in SoHo.
Hernandez, who has a documented history of mental illnesses and a low IQ, initially confessed after seven hours of questioning by three police officers. Immediately after Hernandez confessed, the police administered Miranda warnings, began a video recording, and had Hernandez repeat his confession on tape. He did so again, several hours later, to an assistant district attorney.
When deliberating, the jury sent the judge three different notes about Hernandez's confessions. One of them asked the judge to explain whether, if the jury found that Hernandez's confession before he was read his rights "was not voluntary," it "must disregard" the later confessions. The responded, without further explanation, that "the answer is, no."
The federal appeals court concluded "the state trial court's instruction was clearly wrong" and "that the error was manifestly prejudicial." The court said Hernandez must be released or retried within a reasonable amount of time.
Hernandez's appellate lawyer, Ted Diskant at McDermott Will & Emery, issued the statement below:
"For more than 13 years, Pedro Hernandez has been in prison for a crime he did not commit and based on a conviction that the Second Circuit has now made clear was obtained in clear violation of law. We are grateful the Court has now given Pedro a chance to get his life back, and I call upon the Manhattan District Attorney's Office to drop these misguided charges and focus their efforts where they belong: on finding those actually responsible for disappearance of Etan Patz."
A spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said, "We are reviewing the decision."
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