Etan Patz Murder Conviction Reinstated & Upcoming SCOTUS Cases

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1:46This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio. Six-year-old Eton Pates was the first missing child to appear on milk cartons. His disappearance in 1979 sparked a nationwide campaign to find missing children. But Pates was never found, and his case went unsolved for more than a decade. It wasn't until 2017 that Pedro Hernandez was convicted of his murder and kidnapping and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. But the case didn't end there. New York appellate courts affirmed his conviction, but last year the Second Circuit Federal Appeals Court reversed and ordered a new trial for Hernandez because of the way the trial judge had answered a question from jurors.

2:38But today the Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit and reinstated the murder conviction against Hernandez, finding federal courts shouldn't second guess state courts. My guest is former Manhattan prosecutor and criminal defense attorney Paul Callen of counsel at Edelman and Edelman. Paul, tell us about the disappearance of Eton Pates. The six-year-old was kidnapped off the streets of New York in 1979, and he became the poster child for missing children, I think, to this day. You're absolutely right about that. But as a matter of fact, I think this case has altered child rearing in the United States permanently.

3:22You know, it used to be mom would send kids out the back door and say, go play, come back for supper. Now the parents follow them around, follow them to the bus stop. They're all terrified the kids are going to be kidnapped. And it all started with Eton Pates, who was going to catch a bus to his school in Soho in New York. And he was kidnapped and apparently murdered. And only recently have we had a final resolution of the case in terms of who committed the murder. An individual named Hernandez, whose conviction was now reaffirmed by the Supreme Court. Tell us about the confession because there were some troubling things about the confession.

4:00Yes, there were. His brother-in-law reported to the police that Hernandez had confessed to the murder of Eton Pates. And of course, Eton Pates' murder has been a very, very famous case. throughout the United States ever since it happened back in 1979, a long time ago. In any event, the brother-in-law reports to the police that his, quote, low IQ relative has confessed to the murder. And Camden County, New Jersey police pick him up and they start questioning him, but they don't give him his Miranda warnings. He confesses that he was working in a bodega in Soho when Eton Pates came in to buy a drink as he was on his way to the bus stop and that he murdered Eton Pates and disposed of the body, presumably throwing the body into a dumpster behind the deli.

4:54Full confession to the murder. The police then, who have not given him his Miranda warnings, now say we should give him the Miranda warnings and videotape this confession. And that's exactly what they do. They give him Miranda warnings, videotape the confession, and then they call the district attorney's office in New York and say, you better come out here. We have somebody confessing to the murder of Etan Pates. Now, this was a case that had gone cold for a long time. So obviously, the Manhattan DA's office was very interested in that. Apparently, while all of this is going on, Hernandez also talks to his wife and his daughter, Rosemary and Becky, and he confesses to both of them that he's in fact the person who killed etan pates he's then picked up by the manhattan da's office taken back into new york where he confesses again to the murder this time again on videotape so we now have two videotaped confessions later on during pre-trial proceedings he meets with a psychiatrist he confesses to the psychiatrist that he's the murderer.

5:58And while giving that confession, he also tells the psychiatrist that he admitted this to a prayer group at one point over the last 20 years. So by my count, I think he's confessed now seven times to the murder. All right. So the case goes to trial in New York. The first trial, by the way, ends in a hung jury. He's retried. And the second jury comes back with a jury question. And the jury question is this. If he was not given his Miranda warnings properly and therefore did not voluntarily confess, is it OK for us to consider the other confessions that occurred after this? In substance, that was the question that was asked by the jury.

6:45The way they phrased it was the jury said, do we have to disregard the subsequent confessions if the first confession was not voluntary? The judge says one word, no. No, you don't have to disregard the subsequent confessions. And after that, the jury deliberates for another week and they find Hernandez guilty of the kidnapping and murder of Etan Pates. So that's the story in a nutshell up until we get to subsequent court decisions. And I want to note it was a five month long trial with 66 witnesses. So it wasn't just based on that confession. So through the state, the state appellate courts affirm the conviction.

7:30And then the federal appellate court, the Second Circuit, in a hundred page opinion, last year reversed and ordered that he get a new trial. So what was their reversal based on? The decision was based on the judge's instructions to the jury when they came back with a question, that question that I just repeated. Do we have to disregard the subsequent confessions where the judge just said no? That was the focus. It was a petition for habeas corpus, which, you know, is an elaborate procedure that happens in most serious criminal cases where an appeal has gone through the whole state system and the defendant is still in jail.

8:11He keeps losing. And then he finally goes to federal court and says, my constitutional rights were violated. You, the federal courts, should order my release. And it's called a habeas corpus action. And there's been a law that's been passed making it very difficult to bring a habeas action because what was happening was every criminal case in the United States was winding up in federal court. And the Supreme Court now in this case makes specific reference to that particular law. It's called the ADIPA law that places limitations on habeas corpus actions. So when the Second Circuit, which is a federal court, you know, bear in mind, this went to the appellate division in New York.

8:52The state court, they looked at it and they said, you know something, it's all right. The question of whether a confession is voluntary or involuntary, by the way, is generally decided by a judge. It's not usually decided by a jury. And so the appellate division said under New York law, the way this confession was evaluated was perfectly proper. OK, so then they go into federal court with this and the Second Circuit looks at it, which is the appellate court on the federal side after the district court looks at it first. And they say, well, we think there's a problem here. The judge should have explained in more detail, other than saying no to the jury, that there could be a problem with the confession, that there was insufficient what we call attenuation between the initial confession and the subsequent confession.

9:44which also gets us back to another rule which is the mitchell versus siebert rule that came about when the cops were misusing miranda warnings and what they would do is they would bring you into the station get you to confess to a crime and after you gave the complete detailed confession they'd walk out of the room and then they'd come back in and give you your miranda warnings and say by the way that confession can you repeat that please for the record and now they videotape your confession all right now when the federal courts looked at this they said this is completely improper it's an attempt to get around the miranda warnings and once somebody has been possibly coerced into giving a confession because they haven't heard the miranda warnings of course they're going to repeat the confession so this missouri versus siebert case said basically this is an improper method of administering the Miranda warnings.

10:40And if it's done deliberately by the police, the confession has to be thrown out. So this comes up now in the Hernandez case, because does that violate the Missouri versus Siebert rule? Well, the court in New York said, no, there was no violation of that in our opinion. But when it goes over to the federal court, the federal court says, yes, there was a violation of that. So the Second Circuit reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial for Hernandez. But the Manhattan District Attorney's Office took that decision to the highest court. The state, and this is very unusual, now goes to the Supreme Court to try to get a conviction reinstated.

11:22You know, usually you see a defendant has been convicted going to the Supreme Court to get his case thrown out. This is the opposite. The prosecutor is looking for justice now. So now when they go to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court says, no, there was no violation here because the state looked at it under state law. The administration of Miranda warnings was done properly. There was proper attenuation. And that's a question for the judge, not the jury. The Siebert case never said anything about jury instructions. So this is an overreach by the Second Circuit. And there was no right for a habeas corpus to be brought here.

12:00So we're reinstating the conviction. Paul, did the Supreme Court reverse because the Second Circuit didn't properly follow federal law or because state law should have applied here? Well, it's a complex question because they're saying that in this situation, the state had the right to evaluate whether there was a proper attenuation of the confession. In other words, whether the secondary administration of Miranda warnings by the Manhattan DA and by the police violated New York law. And New York said, no, that doesn't violate our law. And in New York, a jury can sometimes decide whether a confession is voluntary or not.

12:46Under federal law, that's generally a judge determination that's been made. So the Supreme Court looking at this overall said, well, we have looked at this and there's no violation of federal law as it exists. And if there was a violation of state law, the state has already made a decision here that there was no violation of New York state law. So the federal government has no business interfering in how the state of New York interprets the administration of the Miranda warnings and the confession is a voluntary confession. So it's kind of a question of how you evaluate due process under state and federal law and whether there's a conflict between the sovereign entities.

13:32And here the Supreme Court was saying, you know, there are certain things that we leave to the state. And the Federal Habeas Corpus Act says we should leave most of those things alone unless it's an absolutely egregious violation of somebody's constitutional rights. And let's step back and look at this case, June. The guy confessed seven times to the murder. All right. So I think the Supreme Court was looking at it saying, well, you know, we're not worried about whether we have the right guy or not. We're just looking at some technicalities here. And the New York courts looked at those technicalities and said, there's no violation of New York law here.

14:11So we're not going to set it aside because there's no violation of federal law. I mean, the Second Circuit basically wanted the judge to start explaining to the jury a concurring opinion by Justice Kennedy in a case from more than 20 years ago. I mean, it just seemed ridiculous to put it in legal terms. That's exactly what the Second Circuit said. And by the way, people should know this is what's called a per curiam decision by the Supreme Court, which means a decision by the court. We don't know who authored this opinion, but we do know that the three liberal justices on the court voted against.

14:48So it was a 6-3 decision by the court. Nothing from the liberals about why they were dissenting on this. Very unusual because, you know, these procurium decisions are usually very, very short. But this was, I think, an 11-page, very, very detailed decision by the court. and you would think that the three justices who were dissenting would have weighed in as to why they disagreed with the other six members of the court but no they said nothing they just said we dissent so i don't know what the basis of their dissent would be and we'll never know because this case is for all practical purposes over i mean it'll go back to the to the state court and the sentence will be reimposed and and that'll be the end of it for all practical purposes if the Manhattan District Attorney's Office had to retry this case.

15:34I mean, would they have been able to put together a case after all these years? Well, that was one of the things they raised in their briefs, saying it's patently unfair to try to force us to retry a case as old as this case and to try to put it all together. So I think they would have had trouble. But of course, on the other hand, the case primarily depends upon these confessions. and it's easy enough to put the confessions into evidence you know through the psychiatrist and through the camden police and through the manhattan da's now if he's going to offer an insanity defense yeah that could take a lot of time to put in and uh you know we don't know what would happen on a retrial i mean the defense would reassess and figure out a new way to approach the case to try to put an effective defense in play and i will say this defense attorneys were very very adamant in saying he's innocent.

16:28And this is a really terrible decision to reinstate this conviction. Well, I remember Eton Pates' parents were very unhappy when the Second Circuit reversed the conviction, as you might expect. It's been great having you on again, Paul. Thanks so much. That's former Manhattan prosecutor and criminal defense attorney Paul Callen. The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand, but by embedding AI across HR, IT, and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slash repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work.

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19:44The justices have 17 cases left to decide before the term ends, which is usually at the end of June. Seven are high-profile cases, and four of them involve President Trump. Joining me is an expert in constitutional law, Harold Krant, a professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. how so many cases left in the last about week and a half of the term, among them the most high-profile cases of the term, including, for example, the birthright citizenship case or Trump's effort to fire a Federal Reserve governor. I always hear that, well, these are complicated cases, and it takes longer, and there are more concurrences and dissents.

20:29But some of these cases date back to December. So my question is, are they waiting to issue all these important decisions together to try to defuse the impact of any one decision? I think that's plausible. I mean, obviously, the Supreme Court does tend to hold cases of great national importance towards the end so they can make their way into the night. So that has been a tendency. But again, if they want to mute some kind of reaction to their decisions, being both pro-Trump administration and anti-Trump administration, bundling them together is not a bad strategy. And I think the way these cases lay out, it's very likely that there'll be a split.

21:13Yeah, so let's start with some of the most high profile. Birthright citizenship. President Trump's bid to roll back automatic birthright citizenship to babies with at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or green card holder. Well, the issue is there is the 14th Amendment suggests that there is citizenship to anybody born within the jurisdiction of the United States. And the question is, what does jurisdiction mean? But in terms of the history, in terms of how we've interpreted the 14th Amendment, and in terms of a congressional statute that uses similar language and the Supreme Court's precedent in the Long King Arc decision 100 years ago or so, they all point to the direction that the Trump administration is going to lose.

21:59and that we believe that anybody born within the territory of the United States, with certain defined exceptions, such as the Indian tribes, are citizens. And I can't believe the Supreme Court was straight from that in this case. Well, as you say, there's a Supreme Court case directly on point. All the federal courts who ruled on this found that the executive order runs against the citizenship clause as well as federal immigration law, Supreme Court precedent. And when this case was argued, it seemed like justices across the ideological spectrum were dubious about Trump's order. So why didn't this decision come out fast then?

22:37Are we expecting some kind of narrowing or limited interpretation? I can't imagine it in this case. Some of the other cases I can imagine a very limiting perspective that the court will take. But this seems to be teed up as a big Trump loss. and I could be deceiving myself, but it seems like that's going to happen. And again, as you pointed out, maybe the court decides it'll try to temper the sting, if you will, to the Trump administration by combining this case with the one in which it looks more favorably upon what President Trump has done. Okay, so now another one that appears from the oral arguments we knew the answer to.

23:15Trump's effort to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook over unproven mortgage fraud allegations. So again, oral arguments, it seemed like the justices were, you know, of one mind that he couldn't do this. Tell us about the constitutional issue here. Well, the constitutional issue is really twofold. The first is, if the president does not have the right to remove Lisa Cook, who is a Federal Reserve governor at will, then he has to find cause. And the Supreme Court has never defined what cause is. And the cause in this case was the allegation of a mortgage fraud from seven, eight years ago, something like that, before Lisa Cook was governor.

24:00So there's really two, three parts of this in which the court's not going to tackle all three. One is, what does cause mean? We don't know. Does cause extend to conduct pre-appointment. We don't know. My guess is it does. I agree with the Trump administration on that. But also, what kind of process is due and can it be reviewable? So those are the three issues. And I think the court will probably rule against the Trump administration on the ground that at least there has to be an informal opportunity for the officer to give, in this case, her side of the story that she did not engage in any kind of mortgage fraud.

24:42She was not given that opportunity. So I think a narrow due process ruling can leave the officer in place and then leave for another day the very important decision about if we can only remove an officer for cause, what is cause? Is it neglect of duties? Is it wrongdoing? You know, what does it constitute? So that case was argued in January. And now another case related, though not the same, that was argued at the beginning of December is where Trump wants to remove Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, who is a federal trade commissioner, despite a law that says commissioners can only be fired for specific reasons.

25:24Yeah, and this has been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration. This is part of a whole unitary executive movement, saying that the president must be able to closely manage his subordinates in the executive branch. And the administration, as several before him as well, has attacked Humphrey's executor, which protected Congress's decision to, in fact, shield some officers from Atwell Removal Authority. And so that's been a target for many administrations. He picked the exact target, the same Federal Trade Commission that was in the Humphreys Executor decision. And I think the consensus is largely that the Supreme Court will overrule Humphreys Executor, at least in part, if not in the whole.

26:06And so giving the Trump administration a big victory. But the question in my mind is how far will the case go? Will they say all executive branch officials? Will they say all superior executive branch officials? Will they say only some with certain types of enforcement responsibilities? So, for instance, there are executive branch agencies that engage in adjudication. Would their membership also have to be removable at will by the president? So the scope of where the president under the Constitution or Article 2 must have this close authority to supervise subordinates is at stake here. I don't think the court will reach out to think about all of those contexts, but it will at least contain, the decision will contain some hints about why the Federal Trade Commission heads must be removable at will and what other similar agencies must be conformed to that same structure.

27:04So do you think that they might announce these two decisions together? Do you think that one is waiting on the other? They could. I mean, there'll be a nice pair, both because it's really about the same issue in different forms of the same issue. And one will probably go against the administration and one will go for the administration. Coming up, more on the upcoming Supreme Court decisions, including a seeming divide on Election Day ballot deadlines. You're listening to Bloomberg. Support for the show comes from Public.com. If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions.

27:41Buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English. Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S &P 500. Or, if my cash balance goes above$20 ,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve of the workflow and your agent handles the rest. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API.

28:22Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by public investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA, and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. When you own your own business, you own every decision. Now own the card that rewards you for it. The Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business card brings the best Sapphire Reserve benefits to business owners who expect hardworking rewards. Designed to meet the needs of business owners at scale, this pay-in-full card elevates your travel experience and offers premium benefits and value toward business services that will take your business to the next level.