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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