Jury in Etan Patz case rehears closing arguments Thursday

Jurors made the request Wednesday, when a judge told them to keep trying after a deadlock.

|
Louis Lanzano/AP/File
Pedro Hernandez, accused of killing 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979, appears in Manhattan criminal court in New York, in 2012.

Jurors in the murder trial surrounding the decades-old missing-child case of Etan Patz took the unusual step of rehearing closing arguments Thursday, a day after saying they were deadlocked.

Legal pads in hand, jurors listened and sometimes appeared to jot new entries in already-voluminous notes as a court stenographer began reading the summations in the case against Pedro Hernandez. Jurors made the request Wednesday, when a judge told them to keep trying after the deadlock.

Thursday marked the 11th day of deliberations in the case surrounding 6-year-old Etan's 1979 disappearance, which helped draw national attention to the plight of missing children and their families.

Jurors had hours of testimony read back to them and reviewed dozens of exhibits before asking to rehear the summations. Such requests are rare; New York judges have discretion on whether to grant them, according to rulings in earlier cases.

Closing arguments aren't considered evidence — rather, they're each side's way of framing it. It wasn't clear what jurors in Hernandez's case hoped to glean.

"I think it helps clarify whatever issues might remain in some jurors' minds," said one of Hernandez's lawyers, Harvey Fishbein, adding that he was encouraged by the possibility that the summations could aid deliberations.

After rehearing the defense argument, jurors resumed discussion Thursday afternoon before going home for the day. They planned to rehear prosecutors' summation later, possibly Friday.

The Manhattan district attorney's office had no comment. Prosecutors said Wednesday they were confident the jury could reach "a just verdict."

Etan disappeared while walking to his Manhattan school bus stop. He was among the first vanished children featured on milk cartons, and the anniversary of his disappearance became National Missing Children's Day.

Authorities investigated many suspects and leads over the years. But no arrests were made until Hernandez, of Maple Shade, New Jersey, confessed to authorities in 2012. He'd told relatives, a friend and a prayer group many years earlier that he had killed a child in New York.

Hernandez's lawyers say the 54-year-old's confessions are false, generated by a man with a mental illness that makes it difficult for him to tell reality from imagination. The defense also has pointed to a longtime suspect, who was never charged and is now jailed in Pennsylvania, as the more likely killer.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Jury in Etan Patz case rehears closing arguments Thursday
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/0501/Jury-in-Etan-Patz-case-rehears-closing-arguments-Thursday
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe