Etan Patz jury says it’s deadlocked, judge advises them to keep deliberating

Jurors in the Etan Patz murder trial have told the judge presiding over the case that they cannot reach a unanimous verdict.

CBSNewYork has reported that after the jurors sent a note stating that they were deadlocked, Justice Maxwell Wiley gave them an Allen charge and told them to try again. The charge is a set of instructions given if a jury cannot come to an agreement after deliberations. They have been trying to come to a decision since April 15.

The defense argued for a mistrial.

“Any charge to them at this point, even sending a note in to them saying, ‘Would you like to try harder?’ is inherently coercive,” said lawyer Alice Fontier. “We believe that a mistrial is warranted, and any further proceedings after that are over the strenuous objections of the defense.”

Etan Patz went missing in 1979 when he walked to a school bus stop near his parents’ home in New York City.

As previously reported, in 2012, the defendant Pedro Hernandez confessed to strangling Patz and stuffing the six-year-old’s body in a garbage bag. However, he later retracted those statements. His attorneys claim that he has an IQ of 70 and a history of mental illness.

After Patz’s disappearance, he became the first face of a missing child featured on the side of a milk carton.

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