Aaron Katersky, Chief Investigative Reporter at ABC News Interview

Aaron Katersky speaks with Mendte in the Morning about a federal appeals court ruling in favor of Pedro Hernandez, a man convicted in 2017 of kidnapping and murder of 6-year old Etan Patz in 1979. Hernandez stands to be released or set for a re-trial.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And now let's get to more on the Aton Pais case,
because it was kind of a shocking decision by an
appellate court, although the attorney for Aton Paates back in
twenty seventeen predicted this was going to happen because he
said the confession never should have been allowed. For more
on this, let's get to Aaron Katirski, Chief investigative correspondent

(00:22):
at ABC News. Aarin, thanks so much for being with
us this morning. Appreciate your time. I never went through
that fifty two page decision, but I'm sure you have.
What is in there? What does it say? As they
built to this decision.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
So the Second Circuit, Larry has said that the trial
judge Max Wiley made an error when during jury deliberations,
jurors sent a note asking about Pedro Hernandez's confessions. Remember,
he confessed effectively twice. The first time he did it
before police read in his miranda rights, and that's a

(01:05):
mistake and he should have been mirandized. The second time
he did it on video after his rights were read,
and the jury was wondering, if they don't believe the
first confession was proper, do they automatically have to disregard

(01:25):
the second confession, and Judge Wiley answered no, without any
further explanation, and that the Federal Appeals Court said that
that instruction was clearly wrong and it was manifestly prejudicial.
And so the court has ordered Pedro Hernandez yet released
or re tried by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, which

(01:48):
is now reviewing the decision.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Do we have any idea what they may do? We
have a whole new set of prosecutors now, do we
know which way from maybe past cases or what they've
talked about in this case that they may decide?

Speaker 2 (02:03):
You know, the only I think comparable reversal maybe Harvey Weinstein.
And in that case, Alvin Bragg opted to retry Harvey
Weinstein with a mixed result. Here, of course, the circumstances
are different. Pedro Hernandez has already served thirteen years of
a twenty five year to life sentence the Pates Family

(02:28):
stand page. He moved away to Hawaii thinking that justice
had finally been served Larry, and so whether he wants
to go through what would be a third trial. Remember
the first trial ended with a hunjury, second one ended
with this conviction. There's a lot for prosecutors to consider,

(02:48):
and of course they may opt for a different route,
which is to challenge the appellate court and maybe take
it try to take it to the US Supreme Court.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
I remember at the time there were some questions about
the arrest too, because of the mental competency of that.
There was discussed at the time of Pedro Hernandez tell
us about that.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, remember how it all started. The NYPD ended up
digging up a basement in Soho and at the time
prosecutors kind of thought that was a waste of time,
didn't really end up finding anything, but it did have
an effect in that it kind of shook the trees
a little bit, and a relative of Pedro Hernandez and
someone in his church community ended up coming forward to

(03:33):
police to say, hey, this guy who had not been
on the radar ended up confessing to the crime and
said he did it. And when he was talking to
the authorities, he gave details that they believed at the
time only someone who actually committed the crime would have known.

(03:55):
And so they were quite excited about it because it
was a break in the case had effectively gote dormant.
There was this other guy they'd been looking at he
wasn't the guy, so there was some excitement. The Federal
Appeals Court did, however, that that Pedro Hernandez does have
a low IQ. There were questions about his competency, and

(04:15):
even jurors at the time said it was not an
open and shut case, but they believed the confession because
it was on video and that was too much at
the time for Hernandez to overcome. Right.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
I brought up the mental competency for this reason because
before they put it on video, Before they put that
confession on video, they spent seven hours with him, and
I guess there is this suspicion that they talked him
into this, that they spent so much time on him
with him, and he wasn't with it enough to realize

(04:51):
what was happening until they finally convinced him he did it.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
And that's one of the reasons I think why the
Federal Appeals Court said that the trial judge, you know,
made an error in his instruction. It's the tactic that
the law is meant to correct. They don't want police
talking to a suspect before he's read his rights, and
then you know, read him his rights and lo and

(05:17):
behold look what happens. So so prosecutors ended up coming
into the interview and they I think it's called attenuation
where they have to wait a certain number of hours
before they can talk to a suspect again to make
sure the confession is proper. So this went on like

(05:40):
all day, all night, and they you know, they fed him,
they had to give him meals, they had to step
away from him, they had to let him just be
for a good while before they could flip on the
video camera and start asking him questions again. So, in theory,
the confession that was on video was legally proper, but

(06:04):
what preceded it is it was not. And you know,
the prosecutors knew that going in, and perhaps the judges
instructions should have been a little clearer to the jury.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Aaron Katerski, Chief investigative correspondent at ABC News. You're always great,
Thanks so much, Eron, appreciate your time.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Thanks Larry for having me appreciate it.