Prosecutors in New York City are seeking to restore a murder conviction related to the 1979 disappearance and death of Etan Patz.

CBS News reports that the legal team is urging the Supreme Court to reinstate the conviction of Pedro Hernandez. At the same time, they are preparing for the possibility of a new trial.

In July, a federal appeals court overturned Hernandez’s murder conviction. By October, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals decided that Hernandez should either face a retrial or be released because of flawed jury instructions.

The three-judge panel identified that during Hernandez’s 2017 murder trial, the instructions given to the jury regarding his confession were improper.

In July, it was noted that during deliberations in his second trial, the jury sent three notes to the judge concerning Hernandez’s confessions, highlighting the complexities of the case.

“The third note asked the trial court to ‘explain’ whether, if the jury found that Hernandez’s un-Mirandized confession ‘was not voluntary,’ it ‘must disregard’ the later confessions, including the videotaped confessions at the local Camden County Prosecutor’s Office (‘CCPO’) and the Manhattan District Attorney’s (‘DA’s’) Office.”

Along with flawed jury instruction, the appeal claimed that there were also issues with police interrogation and Hernandez’s mental health.

Hernandez’s attorneys claimed he was mentally ill and that he only issued a confession after seven hours of police questioning.

In November, the prosecution decided to retry Hernandez for the third time, CNN reports. However, they are hoping the Supreme Court will bypass the lengthy steps through a reinstatement.

Should the case be retried, jury selection must begin by June 1, 2026.

Hernandez, an 18-year-old bodega clerk at the time of Etan’s death, confessed to strangling the victim after luring him from a school bus stop in New York City, by promising him a soda.

Etan’s remains have never been found, and no forensic evidence has linked Hernandez to the crime.

Police initially arrested Hernandez for second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping in 2012, but his first trial in 2015 ended with a hung jury.

In 2017, a jury deliberated for nine days before convicting him of both crimes.

The Manhattan DA’s office previously said Hernandez should remain incarcerated at Clinton Correctional Facility until the Supreme Court makes its decision.

Check back for updates.

[Feature Photo: FILE – This May 28, 2012, file photo shows a newspaper with a photograph of Etan Patz at a makeshift memorial in the SoHo neighborhood of New York where Patz lived before his disappearance on May 25, 1979. The memorial was set up near a building that housed a convenience store where Pedro Hernandez, accused of killing Patz, told police 33 years after the boy’s disappearance, that he choked the 6-year-old and put the still-living boy into a plastic bag, boxed up the bag and left it on a street. Opening statements in Hernandez’s trial are set for Friday, Jan. 30, 2015. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)]