Martin Tankleff, 42, who was wrongfully convicted for the murders of his parents and released in 2007, graduated from law school on May 25. Tankleff served 17 years of a 50 years to life sentence before an appeals court overturned his conviction on the basis of new evidence.
In January, Tankleff settled for $3.4 million in a false imprisonment lawsuit against New York State. He received his law degree from Touro Law Center and intends to work as an attorney to exonerate wrongfully convicted prisoners such as himself. “I’ve said this all along, that I one day want to become a lawyer and advocate on behalf of those who were wrongfully convicted, to make sure that what happened to me doesn’t happen to anyone else. The system has too many innocent men incarcerated,” he said.
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