Attorney Martin Tankleff, convicted of killing his parents in Belle Terre before being exonerated, now can argue cases before U.S. Supreme Court

Martin Tankleff, the lawyer who served 18 years in prison for his parents' killings before being exonerated, is now eligible to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tankleff’s entry into bar of the country's highest court, which went into effect Oct. 7, marks an incredible reversal of fortune for the Belle Terre man who also teaches at Georgetown Law School as a visiting professor.

"It feels like I got here today because I made a commitment to myself and to other people, that I would do everything in my power to make a difference, and knowing that, as I sit here today, should there come the right case, the right opportunity, somewhere down the road I can argue before the U.S. Supreme Court," he said in an interview with NewsdayTV.

Tankleff’s admission to the Supreme Court bar is not connected to a specific case, but he said he’s ready should that day come.

"To have the opportunity to argue a case, and I'll say win the case, [because] I'm that confident if I can get a case up to the Supreme Court, I'm going to win, I think would be unbelievable," he said.

When Tankleff was just 17, his parents were bludgeoned and stabbed to death in their beds on Sept. 7, 1988. Investigators quickly zeroed in on him as a suspect and took his confession to the killings. But Tankleff recanted his statement and refused to sign it, saying he’d been coerced.

Nevertheless, he was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder in June 1990 and sentenced to 50 years to life behind bars.

He served nearly two decades of that sentence before an appellate court tossed his conviction in 2007 based on new evidence.

Stephen Braga and Barry Pollack, two lawyers who fought for Tankleff’s exoneration, were also his sponsors for his admission to the Supreme Court bar.

Tankleff, who is 54, won a $10 million settlement from Suffolk County for his wrongful conviction and $3.3 million from the state, but he said he was not satisfied to slip into obscurity with his hard-won wealth.

After finishing his undergraduate degree, he attended Touro Law School in Central Islip, graduating in 2014. He taught classes there and at Georgetown University for the next six years, working as a paralegal at a Manhattan firm.

In 2020, he passed the New York bar, becoming a full-time lawyer at Barket Epstein Kearon Aldea & LoTurco in Garden City, but continued to teach at Georgetown, where he became the Peter P. Mullen Distinguished Visiting Professor in 2022.

He continues to advocate for other exonerees and said that setting an example for others was part of why he wanted to be able to argue a case before the Supreme Court.

"It’s about setting motivations and examples for others that were either exonerated or formerly incarcerated, that you can achieve greatness," he said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "You can go to law school, you can become a lawyer, you can eventually argue before the Supreme Court."