Conviction on Confession
Posted on January 14, 2008
Filed Under Appeals, Criminal Law, Story |
Martin Tankleff was just seventeen years old when he was convicted of the brutal murder of his parents in their Long Island, New York home. While no motive beyond adolescent angst was ever given, Marty was convicted based on a confession made to Long Island police after hours of interrogation and a malicious ruse where police told him that his father had awoken from a coma and named him as the attacker. He never signed the confession and recanted, but it was enough for a jury to convict him. He spent the next seventeen years in jail trying to prove his innocence. In December, a panel of the appellate court overturned his conviction and, at the first of the year, the Suffolk County District Attorney announced that he would not start a new trial and would formally drop the indictment against Mr. Tankleff. Marty Tankleff is finally free. Unfortunately after so much time has lapsed, the clues gone cold, and witnesses’ memories faded, the real killers of Arlene and Seymour Tankleff may never be brought to justice.
After seventeen years in prison, how did Marty Tankleff finally win his freedom? Like many prisoners, Mr. Tankleff spent a lot of time writing letters to people he thought may be willing to help him. Mr. Tankleff was luckier than a lot of inmates, though, because he found people who were willing to listen to his story and believed his claims of innocence. With the support of his friends and family, who never believed that he committed the crime, Mr. Tankleff found a team of lawyers and investigators willing to work for free on the arduous task of overturning a conviction.
Six years ago, this new team of lawyers and investigators began to find evidence that implicated Mr. Tankleff’s father’s former business associate, Jerard Steuerman. A man who Martin Tankleff had implicated as soon as his parents’ bodies were found. A man who owed Seymour Tankleff over half a million dollars and had been in the Tankleff home the evening of the murders. A man who fled the state after the murders, faked his own death, and was living in California under an assumed name. A man the police had never really investigated as a suspect.
The new evidence provided by Tankleff’s investigators and lawyers, along with the unsigned and recanted confession, created a compelling alternative theory of the crime. Compelling enough to allow an appellate panel to overturn the conviction on the grounds that it was “probable” that a new jury would render a different verdict, if given a chance to reconsider all evidence now available. While the panel did not find that Tankleff was innocent it instead directed that a new trial be held. After the court’s decision, Mr. Tankleff posted his million-dollar bail and immediately began working on his new trial. A few weeks later came the news that the Suffolk County District Attorney would not seek a new trial. Martin Tankleff was a free man.
While it is hard to call a man lucky who spent seventeen years in prison for a crime he may not have committed, Mr. Tankleff is luckier than many inmates because he found people willing to listen. But to get someone to listen to his tale and to look closely at his arrest and trial, involved a lot of hard work on his part. According to one report Mr. Tankleff sent out over 50,000 letters during his 17-year incarceration. Stories like Mr. Tankleff’s make you wonder how many other people sit in prison due to confessions won by harsh police interrogations and detective work that never investigated other worthwhile suspects. How many prisoners gave up after sending a hundred letters or even a thousand? Hopefully Mr. Tankleff’s story will make people examine a criminal justice system that takes seventeen years and 50,0000 letters to right a wrong. Hopefully, Mr. Tankleff’s case will start people talking about systemic changes that can be made to prevent this from ever happening again.
If you need help getting an appeal, or proving your innocence, call criminal defense attorney Stephen G. Rodriguez and Associates.
Comments
2 Responses to “Conviction on Confession”
Leave a Reply
I’m curious to know if any formal investigation has been brought into the business partner…and also how this type of event can be prevented. It’s a disasterous event for Mr. Tankleff, but he is fortunate he was freed. I’m sure for every one innocent freed, there are 10 more that will never receive that opportunity.
Am I too cynical for wondering who has the movie rights? Okay, maybe I am. Good for Mr Tankleff for fighting for justice!