Experts fascinated

The latest twists and turns in homicide conviction grab the attention of law professors, attorneys

BY VÍCTOR MANUEL RAMOS | STAFF WRITER; South Florida Sun-Sentinel staff writer Nancy Othon contributed to this story.

July 25, 2004

The hearing to determine whether the conviction of Martin Tankleff for murdering his parents should stand or be overturned has riveted legal experts and newshounds.

There was a witness, testifying for the first time last week, who heard someone brag about the killings. There's a pipe, found nearly 16 years after Seymour and Arlene Tankleff were murdered, that could have been the weapon used. And there's an investigator who testified that a witness told him he drove two men to the Tankleff home in Belle Terre the day they were murdered.

But legal experts say that despite that evidence, presented last week during Tankleff's hearing for a new trial, overturning the 1990 conviction is far from a sure thing.

Some legal experts tracking the hearing believe that the re-examination of this case was overdue and that it is not the classic "fishing expedition" of convicts who claim innocence.

Other local attorneys, however, say there hasn't been significant new information needed to justify a retrial.

While the burden to prove the crime "beyond a reasonable doubt" rested on the prosecutors when they first tried Tankleff, now 32, criminal defense attorneys are quick to point out that once a conviction has been rendered the defense needs to show "a preponderance of evidence" that would have substantially altered the case's outcome. In other words, the scales of justice have to tip significantly in favor of the defendant.

One thing is for sure: The legal community of criminal defense attorneys, prosecutors and law professors in Nassau and Suffolk is paying attention to the case, not because this is a precedent-setting proceeding, but because of the attention the case attracted from the start. They also are curious about the match-up between defense attorneys Bruce Barket of Garden City and Barry Pollack of Washington, D.C., and Suffolk prosecutor Leonard Lato.

But even experts such as Richard Klein, a professor of criminal law at Touro Law School in Huntington who thinks that the new evidence ought to be considered, acknowledge that a case like Tankleff's is "always an uphill battle" because of the legal standard that has to be met after a jury has convicted.

"To overturn a verdict, to have a new trial is something that our system is very, very reluctant to do," Klein said. " ... What really is desired is finality. Jury comes in, jury convicts. That's it."

The killing of Arlene and Seymour Tankleff, a well-to-do couple bludgeoned and stabbed on Sept. 7, 1988, stunned Long Island.

Martin Tankleff allegedly confessed to police to waking them by hitting them with a dumbbell and stabbing them with a knife. Prosecutors said he was upset about a number of resentments, including having to drive "a crummy old Lincoln" and being denied the use of the family boat. Tankleff, sentenced to 50 years to life, never signed the confession and later disavowed it.

In the hearing last week before Suffolk County Court Judge Stephen L. Braslow, some witnesses pointed to another man, reportedly connected to a business associate of Seymour Tankleff who owed him hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"People who were in Suffolk County or know about it for a long time have been very troubled by this case," said David Besso, a Bay Shore criminal defense attorney. "It seems to be the talk of Suffolk County at the present time."

What's troubling to those such as Hofstra University School of Law professor Eric Freedman is that the case was mostly based on the disputed confession.

"The case had all the earmarks that we know lead to unreliable results, starting with the confession of a juvenile produced by admitted trickery under circumstances of extreme emotional vulnerability, and the absence of any other substantial evidence," Freedman said. "When you combine that with the existence of another highly plausible explanation, the prosecution's case was paper-thin."

But not everyone believes that the new evidence in Tankleff's case is legally compelling. Some lawyers who watched parts of the courtroom proceedings, which are to continue tomorrow, say the defense has not presented any convincing new evidence and question the credibility of witnesses who have testified.

Glenn Harris, for example, did not show up for his day of testimony Friday. His attorney, Richard Barbuto of Mineola, has declined to comment.

Harris, a key witness who is in the Suffolk County jail for a parole violation on a burglary conviction, was to say that he drove Joseph Creedon and another man to the Tankleff home before the murder. Harris had told private investigator Jay Salpeter that Creedon and another man killed the Tankleffs as a hit job for bagel store operator Jerry Steuerman, Seymour Tankleff's business partner.

Police did not consider Steuerman a suspect and he has denied any involvement in the killings. Reached at their home near Boca Raton, Fla., Steuerman's wife declined to comment yesterday.

Creedon testified at the hearing last week and has denied involvement in the killings.

Defense attorney William Keahon, a former Suffolk homicide prosecutor, watched Salpeter's testimony and said he was impressed by how the prosecution poked holes in Harris' account.

Lato "destroyed that when he quoted from a letter where Harris himself said, 'I am a pathological liar,'" said Keahon, who had left the district attorney's office years before the Tankleff case. "Harris called himself a sociopath, indicated in the letters that he was undergoing psychiatric evaluations and was on lithium and other mind-altering drugs ... They were direct quotes. So how can anyone consider anything that this guy Harris says?"

Karlene Kovacs, who testified that she heard Creedon say he participated in the killings, also was dismissed by some as offering hearsay. The law treats that as unreliable evidence based on the word of another person who's not under oath, which attorneys say would probably be challenged at trial.

Raymond Perini, a Hauppauge-based defense attorney, said, "I think the credibility factor is a very difficult thing for the defense to overcome."

South Florida Sun-Sentinel staff writer Nancy Othon contributed to this story.