Man convicted in 1979 N.Y. missing child case loses bid for new trial

By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York state judge on Thursday rejected a request from a former delicatessen worker to throw out his February conviction for murdering Etan Patz, a 6-year-old boy whose disappearance in 1979 became one of the country's most infamous missing child cases.

The decision paves the way for Pedro Hernandez, 56, to be sentenced on April 18 for murder and kidnapping. He faces up to life in prison.

Patz vanished as he walked alone to a bus stop in New York City's SoHo neighborhood on May 25, 1979. The ensuing media attention raised awareness of the plight of missing children, and Patz was one of the first whose photo appeared on a milk carton seeking information.

Hernandez confessed to police in 2012, but his lawyers argued at trial that his admission was the product of mental illness. Patz's body was never found.

A previous trial of Hernandez ended in a mistrial in 2015 when a single juror out of 12 refused to convict him.

His sentencing had been postponed after his defense lawyers said in court papers that some jurors at the second trial knew that jurors from the first trial were in the courtroom, sitting near Patz's father, Stanley Patz.

That conveyed to jurors the message that the jurors from the previous trial supported the Patz family, they argued.

But Judge Maxwell Wiley ruled on Thursday that fact, even if true, was not enough on its own to throw out the verdict.

"The trial was held in open court, open to any member of the public," he said. "The defendant does not have a cognizable right to determine who may sit in the audience."

Hernandez's lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, said in an interview that the ruling was "the latest in a long line of decisions that have prevented Pedro Hernandez from receiving a fair trial." He said the juror issue is just one of several grounds for appeal he plans to pursue.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Chris Reese)