Tankleff update

I have followed this case for some years. Here is an excerpt from what appeared on this blog in Jan., 2006:

"Martin H. Tankleff was supposed to start his senior year of high school on Sept. 7, 1988. But before dawn, his parents were bludgeoned and stabbed during a rampage in their home on a cliff overlooking Long Island Sound. Within hours he was arrested, based on a confession that was handwritten by a detective, which Mr. Tankleff promptly repudiated and never signed. Still, it sealed his fate. In 1990 a jury convicted him of double murder, and he began serving two consecutive terms of 25 years to life in prison. He appealed, in vain, all the way to the United States Supreme Court."

A New York man who was convicted of killing his parents in 1990 achieved two milestones this year: He obtained a nearly $3.4 million settlement in a suit alleging wrongful conviction, and he graduated from law school.

Martin Tankleff, 42, received his degree from Touro Law Center in a graduation ceremony on Sunday, the New York Post reports. The Associated Press spoke with Tankleff before the ceremony.

Tankleff was released from prison in December 2007 after an appeals court overturned his conviction on the basis of new evidence. New witnesses had said Tankleff’s parents were killed by a man angry over a business dispute. Prosecutors opted not to retry Tankleff.

Tankleff will take the bar exam in August and the next month he will become executive director of a group that works to free wrongfully convicted inmates.

"I look forward to being able to work with people who have been wrongfully convicted," Tankleff said, according to the New York Post account. "I think I understand the system better than anyone else, any lawyer, any judge.

Original report here

　

　

　

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