Tagged: Miranda

Student Perspective: The Etan Patz Case – Confession, Lack of Physical Evidence and Reasonable Doubt

POST WRITTEN BY: Alexander Zugaro (’15), Pace Law School

The story of the 6-year-old boy, Etan Patz, who had gone missing in SOHO Manhattan in 1979, is one that stretches over several decades. Now, after a ruling on November 24, 2014 by Judge Maxwell Wiley and almost a three month long trial, the story is reaching a conclusion. In 2012, after police re-opened the investigation, Pedro Hernandez confessed to law enforcement that he was responsible for the disappearance and murder of Etan Patz. He told law enforcement that he strangled Etan and disposed of his body. Mr. Hernandez was an 18-year-old man working in a neighborhood convenience store at the time of Patz’s disappearance.

However, this past fall a hearing was held regarding the admissibility of Mr. Hernandez’s confession. Hernandez’s defense attorney, Harvey Fishbein, argued that Hernandez was schizophrenic and bipolar at the time he made his confession. As such, Mr. Hernandez did not understand he could reassert his right against self-incrimination even after he waived his Miranda warnings. Yet, Judge Maxwell Wiley ruled on November 24, 2014 that the confession was admissible, stating that Hernandez waived his Miranda rights and that such waiver was done knowingly and intelligently.

To date the prosecution has not been able to find any evidence corroborating Hernandez’s confession, except a statement made by Hernandez’s brother who told police that Hernandez had confessed to him two years prior to his arrest and a statement made to members of his prayer group in the summer of 1979, none of whom came forward to testify until after Mr. Hernandez was arrested. The body of Etan Patz was never found, and prosecutors have not presented any physical evidence tying Mr. Hernandez to the boy’s disappearance.

The significance of Judge Wiley’s ruling is that the jury was able to hear Hernandez’s confession and will decide on whether they believe his confession is reliable. Defense attorney Frishbein stated that “Mr. Hernandez is extremely suggestible because of his low I.Q. and other mental handicaps. Anyone who sees these confessions will understand that when the police were finished with him, Mr. Hernandez believed he killed Etan Patz, but that doesn’t mean that he did.” On the other hand, however, the lead prosecutor stated that Mr. Hernandez’s statements contain little-known details about the crime that would be hard for someone to invent. Because Judge Wiley ruled that Hernandez’ confession is admissible, the prosecution was able to present this confession as evidence to the jury, leading to the inevitable back and forth between Mr. Fishbein and the prosecutors about the reliability and weight of the confession.

Generally, if a defendant makes a videotaped confession coupled with voluntary admission to at least one other person, such evidence would be nearly impossible for the defense attorney to overcome. However, since in this case there is no tangible evidence corroborating the confession, will the jury doubt the accuracy of Mr. Hernandez’ confession? Time will soon tell.

Since the beginning of the trial on January 30, 2015, the defense has continued to undermine the reliability of Hernandez’s confession. Not only has the defense argued that the confession was a fantasy invented under police pressure by a man with a weak and malleable mind, plagued by a personality disorder, Mr. Fishbein has presented evidence of an alternative suspect who might have been responsible of Etan Patz’ disappearance. Witnesses place Jose A. Ramos, a man convicted of child molestation in an unrelated case, near Etan Patz’s home around the time of the murder. Ramos was dating Ms. Susan Harrington, who was hired to walk Etan Patz to and from school. The defense witnesses further testified that Ramos met Etan Patz and that he had been in the Patz’s apartment. Although Etan Patz’s mother denied Ramos was ever in their apartment, by presenting this evidence, the defense further undermined Hernandez’s confession.

The confession of Mr. Hernandez has become the focal point of the entire trial. As the attorneys are delivering their closing arguments, many people following the case and trial, I’m sure, have developed their opinions. For me, it was important to realize and understand that an innocent defendant and a defendant being not guilty are two very different things. The defense attorney has to create a reasonable doubt in the jurors’ minds that Hernandez has possibly not committed the alleged crime in order to succeed. Mr. Fishbein’s efforts to cast this doubt by introducing an alternative suspect theory, by undermining the reliability of the original confession, and by pointing to the lack of physical evidence have been clear. However, it is difficult to tell what the outcome of this case will be. As the jury is about to retire to deliberate, the long anticipated verdict will soon be revealed bringing this case to a close after decades of waiting.

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Second Circuit: Admittance of Co-Defendant’s Redacted Confession Violated Confrontation Clause

A recent decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals may provide guidance to criminal defense practitioners seeking to (1) suppress the involuntary confession of a client, and (2) limit the impact of a co-defendants’ redacted confession being admitted at trial. The Second Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed a panel’s decision to vacate the convictions of three defendants found guilty of conspiring to commit a Hobbs Act robbery, among other things, and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. The Court had been asked by the government to review a panel decision that had formerly held that the “confession” of one of the defendant’s was involuntary and should not have been admitted against the declarant at trial. The government also sought review of the panel’s determination that the admission of the “confession” was also prejudicial to the declarant’s co-defendants, requiring a new trial. United States v. Taylor, 736 F.3d 661 (2d Cir. 2013).

A panel of the Court had held that the defendant’s Miranda waiver was not knowing and voluntary, given that the defendant was clearly mentally incapacitated during his interview with federal agents. Id. at 669. The panel noted that the defendant had ingested a quantity of Xanax pills immediately before his arrest, and not long before the interrogation by the FBI had begun. The panel pointed out that the defendant was “in and out of consciousness while giving his statement, and in a trance or a stupor most of the time when not actually asleep.” Id. at 670. As such, the panel determined that “the officers’ persistent questioning took undue advantage of [the] [defendants’] diminished mental state, and ultimately overbore his will.” Id. The panel concluded that the admission of the defendant’s involuntary confessions was a critical part of the prosecution’s case, and could not be deemed “harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 672.

Notably, the Second Circuit (en banc) withdrew the panel’s prior decision, and issued a superseding opinion. States v. Taylor, 2014 WL 814861, (2d Cir. 2014). It not only reaffirmed the panel’s prior decision in all respects, but further held that the admission of the defendant’s “confession” at trial violated the Confrontation Clause rights of the other co-defendants. The Court ruled that the redacted confession simply did not comply with Bruton, and made it obvious to jurors that the declarant had implicated his co-defendants in the crime. The Court explained that the redacted version of the defendant’s statement suggested that the original statements contained actual names.

The Court took observance of the fact that the redacted statement had contained both the declarant’s name and the name of the government’s cooperating witness (“Luana Miller”), while referencing the other co-defendants by “two other individuals” or “driver.”  Id. The Court reasoned that the redacted confession allowed jurors to notice that “Miller is the one person involved who was cooperating, and [] infer that the obvious purpose of the meticulously crafted partial redaction was to corroborate Miller’s testimony against the rest of the group, not to shield confederates.” Id. at *11. The Court noted that “[i]f the defendant had been trying to avoid naming his confederates, he would not have identified one of them-Miller-in the very phrase in which the names of the other confederates are omitted.” Id.

The Court explained that “[o]nce it becomes obvious that names have been pruned from the text, the choice of implied identity is narrow. The unnamed persons correspond by number (two) and by role to the pair of co-defendants.” Id. at *12. The Court noted that the “obviously redacted confession … points directly to the defendant[s], and it accuses the defendant[s] in a manner similar to … a testifying codefendant’s accusatory finger.” Id. (quoting Gray, 523 U.S. at 194).  The Court concluded that the “awkward circumlocution used to reference other participants, coupled with the overt naming of Luana Miller (only), is so unnatural, suggestive, and conspicuous as to offend Bruton, Gray, and Jass.” Id.

While the Second Circuit’s decision is applaudable, it may leave many criminal defense practitioners pondering over the slew of similar cases that have come before the Circuit in the past without any success on this  issue. Both the language and form (identifying by name the declarant & cooperator(s), while others as “person/individual”) that the Court identified in Taylor appears to have been customarily approved by the Courts. Indeed, Federal prosecutors have routinely been able to utilize such redacted confessions, although the defense has routinely objected to its admission based upon the obvious nature of the redaction and the likelihood that the jury will infer that their client had been implicated by their cohort.  Nevertheless, the Second Circuit has finally spoken against this once unfettered practice, and provided some much needed guidance on the issue.

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