About Martin Tankleff

Martin H. Tankleff, Special Counsel at Barket Epstein Kearon Aldea & LoTurco, a boutique litigation firm with locations in Garden City, Huntington, and Manhattan. Marty Tankleff is the current Peter P. Mullen Distinguished Visiting Professor at Georgetown University (previous recipients include Ron Klaine, Seth Waxman, Paul Clement, Maureen Mahoney, and others).

At Georgetown, Marty teaches a class alongside his childhood friend, Professor Marc M. Howard, called Making an Exoneree. It is an undergraduate class where students reinvestigate potential wrongful conviction cases. In the past five years, Marty and Marc have walked three innocent men out of prison. Through their work at Georgetown, Marty, and Marc are either co-counsels or advisory team members on cases in several different states. At Barket Epstein, Mr. Tankleff will focus on wrongful convictions, prisoner and civil rights while working hand in hand with other members of the firm on criminal defense, civil matters, and related legal matters.

Marty’s zealous advocacy for those who have been wrongly convicted stems from his own personal experience. Marty was wrongfully convicted on June 28, 1990, for the murder of his parents, Seymour and Arlene, two years earlier. At the time of his arrest, Mr. Tankleff was a 17-year-old student, embarking on his Senior year of High School. In the blink of an eye, his life changed. After being sentenced to two consecutive terms of 25 years to life, Mr. Tankleff filed a 2003 appeal with new evidence from almost two dozen witnesses.