The hung jury in the Etan Patz case was right - Los ......Pedro Hernandez’s daughter, Becky...
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COLUMN OP-ED The hung jury in the Etan Patz case was right By MEGHAN DAUM MAY 14, 2015 | 5:00 AM ! " # ADVERTISEMENT > ADVERTISEMENT > TRIAL OFFER | 4 weeks for 99¢ Loud booms in downtown L.A.? That was a U.S. Army training exercise Adam Levine thanks you for hating Maroon 5's Super Bowl performance La ciencia explica el truc de lanzar agua hirviendo aire con 14 grados bajo $ TOPICS fl SEARCH SUBSCRIBE 4 weeks for only 99¢ % LOG IN
Transcript of The hung jury in the Etan Patz case was right - Los ......Pedro Hernandez’s daughter, Becky...
COLUMN OP-ED
The hung jury in the Etan Patz case wasright
By MEGHAN DAUM MAY 14, 2015 | 5:00 AM ! " #
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Loud booms in downtown L.A.? That was
a U.S. Army training exercise
Adam Levine thanks you for
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Bowl performance
La ciencia explica el truco
de lanzar agua hirviendo al
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Pedro Hernandez’s daughter, Becky Hernandez (left), holds hands withher mother, Rosemary Hernandez, as they exit court on May 8. (KevinHagen / Associated Press)
A judge in New York City declared a mistrialFriday in the case of Pedro Hernandez, a disabledfactory worker charged in one of the most famouschild abductions in modern memory: thedisappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz more than30 years ago.
The jury was deadlocked, 11 to 1. The holdout, 42-year-old Adam Sirois, insisted there wasn'tsufficient evidence to convict Hernandez, whosehistory of schizophrenic delusions andhallucinations complicated his confession.
Sirois has since become a minor celebrity, givinginterviews and, in one case, being compared toHenry Fonda's character in the 1957 film "TwelveAngry Men," a courtroom drama in which a singlejuror painstakingly persuades his fellow paneliststo come over to his side and declare a man notguilty.
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Sirois' heroism isn't quite so clear-cut. He's beenaccused of courting the spotlight, flaunting hisintelligence and generally appearing smug andself-satisfied. Another juror called him "totallyirrational" and told a reporter, "We never want tosee him again."
Just as it's possible to be guilty of a crime whenthere isn't enough evidence for a conviction, it'salso possible to be both an arrogant jerk andabsolutely correct. Sirois was right to not convictHernandez. It's one thing to crave the closure aguilty verdict would bring to a wrenching, brutalcase. It's quite another to convict the wrong guybecause someone should pay.
Etan Patz disappeared from his Sohoneighborhood on May 25, 1979, the first day hismother allowed him to walk two blocks to theschool bus unaccompanied. The search for Etan,which never turned up a body, led to radical shiftsin ideas about the innocence of childhood and theresponsibilities of parenthood.
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A culture that once saw little harm in mothersparking babies in strollers outside stores whilethey ducked inside transformed into one suffusedwith constant, low-grade child-safety anxiety, evenin quiet suburbs.
Children who once played outdoors for hourswithout adult supervision were now sternlyeducated about "stranger danger," ferried fromone supervised activity to the next, or kept insidein front of televisions and video games. In 1983President Reagan declared May 25 MissingChildren's Day, and Etan's face was among the firstto appear on the milk carton campaign of the1980s.
In 2004, a convicted pedophile named Jose Ramoswas judged responsible for Etan's death in a civillawsuit. Ramos, a drifter who in the late 1970s hadlived for a while in a drainpipe in upperManhattan, dated a woman who for a time hadbeen hired by the Patzes and other families to walktheir children to school during a school bus strike.Ramos told a prosecutor he was “90% sure” he'dmet Etan on the day of his disappearance and triedto molest him before putting him on a subway.
Eight years later, Hernandez entered the picturebased on a police tip. In 1979 he worked at abodega near Etan's bus stop where neighborhoodchildren routinely gathered, As if in a bizarre gameof grotesque one-upsmanship, Hernandez —whose lawyers say he has an IQ of around 70 and ahistory of delusions and hallucinations — toldinvestigators he strangled Etan in the bodega'sbasement, put the body in a plastic bag and took itout with the trash.
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In today's climate of helicopter parenting, and inan economy in which cities whose once-grittyneighborhoods brim with multimillion-dollar realestate and meticulously screened nannies, it isalmost unimaginable that youngsters once roamedthe streets alone and convened at will at bodegas.The idea that loving parents could entrust theirchildren to someone who also cavorted withdrainpipe-dwelling pedophiles seems likesomething out of a sick fairy tale.
Which is exactly why Sirois was right to voteagainst conviction.
Hernandez was the defendant, but what was alsoon trial was the memory of a bygone era, one aboutwhich it is possible to feel simultaneously nostalgicand horrified, a combination that bounces usbetween certainty and mystification about whatcould have happened in those days. The jury hadto wrestle with slim facts, a generation's worth ofanxiety about real and mythical boogeymen andthe degree to which parents can and cannot keepthem away.
We may never know exactly what happened toEtan. And that's even more terrifying thananything offered in these confessions. Given that, amistrial, although deeply unsatisfying, seemsstrangely, and sadly, appropriate.
Twitter: @meghan_daum
Follow the Opinion section on Twitter@latimesopinion and Facebook
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Meghan Daum CONTACT ! " &
Meghan Daum was born in California and grew upprimarily on the East Coast. She is the author of four books,most recently a collection of original essays, “TheUnspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion.” Her otherbooks include the cult favorite essay collection “MyMisspent Youth,” as well as a novel and a memoir. She isalso the editor of “Selfish, Shallow & Self-Absorbed: SixteenWriters on the Decision Not to Have Kids,” which will bepublished in the spring of 2015. Daum has written fornumerous magazines, including the New Yorker, Harper’sand Vogue, and contributed to the public radio programs“Morning Edition,” “Marketplace” and “This AmericanLife.” Her column has run on the Op-Ed page since 2005.Learn more about her at meghandaum.com.
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