Testimony from Ed Miller

... In 2014, Abu asked me if he would be accepted in the Episcopal Church.  Abu has spent his entire life seeking a family and a community that he could believe in and call his own.  I answered, “Yes.  I have told your story, and we would let you tell your own story.”  Before I departed Death Row that day Abu told me that the reason he asked the question was that during my previous visit with him I had called him “brother”.  He said that when he went back to his cell, he thought about the number of Episcopalians who had helped him over the years.  A couple of weeks later Abu told me that he wanted to become an Episcopalian and that he wanted to do so on October 15, 2014, his 64th birthday. 

As requested, on his birthday Abu was confirmed as a communicant of the Episcopal Church by Bishop John Bauerschmidt of the Diocese of Tennessee, and he is today a parishioner of Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville.  At the conclusion of Abu’s Confirmation Service, that was conducted on Death Row, Abu sang “Amazing Grace”.  There was not a dry eye among the people present.  This is a man whose parents never celebrated his birthday and never had a birthday cake for him.  He was severely abused as a child and suffers from PTSD.  But, October 15, 2014, his 64th birthday, was probably his happiest birthday!  He is my brother!

My mother died on March 25, 2015.  Her funeral was on March 28, 2015.  The visitation was on the evening of March 27, 2015.  When I arrived at the funeral home, I was directed to an arrangement of flowers.  The card was from “Abu Ali and Linda”.  My mother did not live in Tennessee.  To think that at an out-of-state visitation there was a condolence flower arrangement from a Tennessee Death Row inmate was overwhelming.  I cried!  Linda Manning, a retired Vanderbilt Clinical Psychologist, is Abu’s spiritual advisor.  I am certain that the initiative to send the flowers was from Abu and that Dr. Manning responded respectfully to Abu’s request. 

Abu is a man of compassion, which is demonstrated by his many acts of love and kindness.  Here is one of many examples. There was an elderly woman from Nebraska who regularly corresponded with Abu, often about spiritual matters. Over the years she came to respect and admire Abu.  The day after Abu was confirmed in the Episcopal Church, she passed away.  Because of her connection with Abu, she left him a small inheritance.  He contributed a portion of that inheritance to Christ Church Cathedral, his home parish, another act of love and kindness.

I am a lawyer.  I have become familiar with Abu’s case.  I know for certain that he and the crime were not correctly portrayed during his trial.  In his trial, he cried out to the jury, “You don’t know me.”  That was a true statement.  I have come to know Abu.  I am confident that if the jury had learned about Abu and his background and mental health, and if they had learned about the true circumstances of the crime and the blood evidence that was never presented to them which shows that Abu could not have been the killer, at a minimum the jury would have sentenced him to life and not death.

As I stated, Abu is my brother.  He does not deserve to be executed.