Martin Tankleff - False Confession / False Accusation / Misconduct

Tankleff, Martin; murder; NRE: false confession, perjury/false accusation, police officer misconduct, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, misconduct in interrogation of exoneree, perjury by official

Suggestibility issues

[Source unknown, but likely a law review article:]

"On September 7th, 1988, Seymour and Arlene Tankleff were fatally attacked in their home in Belle Terre...Their son, Martin, was seventeen years old at the time. When the police arrived, Martin repeatedly and consistently asserted that his father's business partner, Jerard Steuerman, committed the murders. Steuerman had owed Tankleff a lot of money and, one week after the murders, staged his own death, changed his appearance, and fled to California. Martin Tankleff was convicted on two counts of murder in the second degree, and given a 50-year-to-life sentence."

from Records and Briefs:

[2] "In 2003, [Tankleff] filed a...motion presenting powerful new evidence that... Joseph Creedon, and his associate Peter Kent, were the real killers...The County Court heard testimony from six witnesses -- Joseph Guarascio (Creedon's son), Karlene Kovacs, John Guarascio, Gaetano Foli, Billy Rom, and Joseph Graydon -- who all testified that, on various occasions and over a number of years, Creedon admitted to having committed the Tankleff murders...Additionally, Creedon's accomplice, Peter Kent, admitted to James Moore, his former co-worker on a construction crew, that he and a friend were hired to commit the Tankleff murders.

"Creedon and Kent's admissions were corroborated by Glenn Harris, who admitted in a sworn statement that he drove Creedon and Kent to a house in Belle Terre, Long Island (the Tankleff's neighborhood), on the night in question, [3] thinking that they were going to commit a robbery. When Creedon and Kent emerged from the house, however, Harris saw that they were covered with blood, and he learned the next day that their victims were the Tankleffs. Harris has given this account to at least nine different people, including his wife, his mother, a priest, and two wired informants sent by the [DA's] office."

[4] "Creedon has admitted that he was hired by Jerry Steuerman to kill the Tankleffs, and that, on the night in question, [5] Steuerman was at the Tankleff's house to commit the murders. Moreover, another witness, Neil Fisher, testified that shortly after the murders Steuerman admitted during a fit of anger that he had killed two people.

"Additionally, [Tankleff] presented new evidence showing that the lead detective in the case, K. James McCready, perjured himself at trial. McCready was a crucial prosecution witness, and he was the detective who obtained Marty's unrecorded false confession* after aggressively interrogating him for hours without Miranda warnings**...At trial, defense counsel attempted to elicit a motive for McCready's decision to ignore Steuerman as a suspect despite numerous indications of his guilt...In response to questions by defense counsel, McCready repeatedly and categorically denied that he knew Jerry Steuerman prior to the day of the murders." [Emphasis original.]

[* Nickel's purported confession was not recorded either.]

[** Nickel too was questioned for hours, without Miranda warnings ever being given.]

"This testimony was blatantly false. New, undisputed evidence from two witnesses establishes that McCready and Steuerman were in fact friends and business associates years before the murders. Thus, Detective McCready, the lead [6] investigator and lead interrogator in [Tankleff's] case, knowingly covered up his longstanding friendship with the man whom [Tankleff] and his family had accused from the beginning...[A] state-level investigation of the Suffolk County Police Department and DA's office found that McCready also committed perjury in another murder trial."

C10 [478] "In 1990, Tankleff was convicted of murdering both of his parents, largely based on an alleged 'confession' that was 'repudiated and never signed' by Tankleff." [The only reason why the police got this supposed confession was by lying to him, telling him that his father -- before succumbing to his wounds -- had said his son was the culprit. Martin would later indicate that because he thought neither the police nor his own father would lie, Martin was -- briefly -- led to believe he must have 'blacked out' and committed the murders, which he could no longer recall having done.]

"In 2003, thirteen years after he was convicted, Tankleff began an appeal in which he presented evidence from twenty individuals who explained how his father's embittered business partner -- who had faked his own death after the murders -- committed the crime. The [county] court denied the appeal on the grounds that the evidence was 'unreliable, inadmissible hearsay, belatedly introduced or reprising issues rejected in prior appeals.' The court also found that Tankleff had failed to exercise 'due diligence' because he failed to make the motion back in [479] 1994 -- four years after his conviction -- when he first obtained one of the affidavits that was later presented in the 2003 appeal.

"On appeal, thirty-one former prosecutors submitted an Amicus brief arguing that Tankleff had 'presented persuasive evidence' that he was wrongly convicted and deserved a new trial. The Appellate Division...reversed the county court's denial of the motion, finding that 'due diligence' had been met on the ground that Tankleff 'should not be penalized for waiting to amass all of the new evidence and then presenting it cumulatively.' With regard to whether the new evidence would have led to a more favorable verdict, the Appellate Division found that the county court had failed to take into consideration the entirety of the evidence and the fact that many of the witnesses were unconnected to one another, and had come forward independently and at different times. The appellate court explained that the trial court's [ Stephen Bradshaw's [480] "[I]t took five years and pressure from dozens of former prosecutors to have the appellate court consider the available evidence."

[The state appellate court did -- finally -- reverse Tankleff's convictions. Several months later, the Suffolk County DA annouced there would not be a re-trial.]

T6 [1997 ruling denying Tankleff relief, authored by U.S. District Judge Thomas C. Platt: ]

"With the benefit of 'Monday morning quarterbacking' and able lawyers associated with experienced, large law firms, it is not difficult for any criminal defendant in a 'high profile' case to magnify the significance and 'importance' of one or more 'close calls' in pre-trial and trial proceedings and make respectable arguments as to their constitutional validity in a habeas corpus (post jury trial) proceeding which might find acceptability in arenas removed from reality but not otherwise.

"[Tankleff] did so here recently and this Court gave Defendants [sic] pleas in depth [sic], careful, and thoughtful consideration notwithstanding the fact that seven highly esteemed members of our State's Court of Appeals, three highly esteemed members of our [sic] Appellate Division, Second Department and a very respected member of the Suffolk County...Court had carefully reviewed, considered and denied [Tankleff's] motions..."

[As we have seen numerous times in this section, countless 'esteemed members' of local and appellate state courts, as well as federal courts, have affirmed indisputably innocent defendants' convictions over and over again. (And the present federal court's self-aggrandizing of its own review of the Tankleff case as "in depth, careful, and thoughtful" is -- frankly -- laughable.)]

"Normal behavior on the part of the son would not follow the pattern that occurred here culminating in a full confession after Miranda warnings."

[By 'normal behavior,' Platt apparently meant 'the behavior of an innocent person.' The fact that, at the end of the twentieth century, a sitting federal judge could be so blissfully ignorant of the empirically-established reality of false confessions beggars belief. DNA has proven this beyond any doubt. (And it is disingenuous to characterize Tankleff's statement as a 'full confession,' given that he didn't even sign it.)]

"Appropriate professional behavior on the part of the police, on the other hand, would have followed the practice that occurred here. There was no leap to a premature conclusion, and there was opportunity given to a possible suspect away from the highly charged, stressful scene to offer whatever explanation he wished to give and there was a test made of his explanation which revealed to the son the futility of his position. Thereafter, the arrest was made, warnings were given and a voluntary confession was given by the son, which was corroborated at the crime scene itself."

['Appropriate professional behavior on the part of the police...' Really?! Not even considering as a suspect Seymour Tankleff's business partner, who owed the former a great deal of money and faked his own death before fleeing to California? Martin Tankleff was not merely a 'possible suspect' as far as the police were concerned; he was the only suspect they ever considered. And, last but not least, there were major aspects of the son's alleged confession that absolutely were not 'corroborated at the crime scene itself,' including the type of weapon used, and on what areas of the Tankleff parents' bodies the wounds were inflicted.]

from NRE synopis (by Maurice Possley):

"On March 17, 2006, Suffolk County...Judge Stephen Bradshaw denied the petition for a new trial, saying the defense evidence 'consisted mainly of testimony from a cavalcade of nefarious scoundrels.' The judge declared, 'After thoroughly reviewing this matter, this court reaches the same conclusion that the jury reached. . .and every state appellate court and federal court that has reviewed this case, and that is that Martin Tankleff is guilty of murdering his parents.'"

"Tankleff was released on December 27, 2007. The charges were dismissed on July 22, 2008."*

[* Thus, the DA left Tankleff 'hanging' for nearly seven months before finally doing the right thing.]

"In March 2009, Tankleff filed a federal civil wrongful conviction lawsuit against the State of New York and the Suffolk County police department and several officers, including McCready. In January 2014, the State of New York settled for $3.375 million. In 2018, Suffolk County settled for $10 million.

"In 2014, Tankleff graduated from Touro Law Center and subsequently passed the New York bar exam. he was sworn in to practice law in New York in February 2020."

[All emphases added unless otherwise noted.]