After Prolonged Fight With Local Prosecutors, Tennessee Attorney General Will Not Appeal Plea Deal Taking Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman Off Death Row

More than 34 years after hav­ing been sen­tenced to death in Nashville, Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman is com­ing off Tennessee​’s death row. 

After a pro­longed dis­pute between Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III, and Davidson County reform District Attorney Glenn Funk, Slatery announced on December 10, 2021 that he would not appeal a November 11 plea deal that would resen­tence Abdur’Rahman to three con­sec­u­tive life terms. Nashville Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins approved the resen­tenc­ing after accept­ing Funk’s stip­u­la­tion that for­mer Davidson County Assistant District Attorney John Zimmerman had uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly exer­cised his dis­cre­tionary jury strikes to exclude Black prospec­tive jurors from serv­ing in Abdur’Rahman’s 1987 cap­i­tal tri­al. Funk told the court that pros­e­cu­tion notes from Abdur’Rahman’s jury selec­tion and com­ments Zimmerman made dur­ing a state-wide pros­e­cu­tors’ train­ing pro­gram in which he advo­cat­ed race-based use of jury strikes amount­ed to a ​“smok­ing gun of racial bias” in the case. 

The plea deal, which had the sup­port of the vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers, was the sec­ond time that the coun­ty court had approved an agree­ment between local pros­e­cu­tors and defense lawyers to remove Abdur’Rahman from the state’s death row. Under the deal, Abdur’Rahman admit­ted guilt on three charges — mur­der, attempt­ed mur­der, and armed rob­bery — and waived his right to future appeals. 

Slatery had scut­tled a pri­or 2019 plea agree­ment, argu­ing that Funk lacked the author­i­ty to mod­i­fy Abdur’Rahman’s sen­tence with­out first obtain­ing a judi­cial deter­mi­na­tion that his con­vic­tion or death sen­tence had been uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly obtained. The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with Slatery’s argu­ment, struck down the plea deal, and returned the case to Judge Watkins with direc­tions on how to proceed.

In announc­ing his deci­sion not to appeal the lat­est plea deal, Slatery took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to lob one last broad­side at the dis­trict attor­ney. In a let­ter to Funk, Slatery wrote that “[m]y office has reviewed the court’s order, and we have sig­nif­i­cant con­cerns about its legal­i­ty. Despite these con­cerns, we have decid­ed not to appeal, in part, because we think it would be unfair to expose Mr. Abdur’Rahman to con­tin­ued uncer­tain­ty about his sen­tence.” Slatery cau­tioned Funk that the ​“deci­sion not to appeal should not be tak­en by you or any­one else as tac­it approval of the order obtained or the posi­tions you have taken.”

During his more than three decades on death row, Abdur’Rahman had twice come with­in days of exe­cu­tion before court deci­sions issued stays that allowed him to con­tin­ue to lit­i­gate his case.