The Full Story

*Note: This timeline includes explicit content.

1949(ish) Abu’s biological mother, Jessie Burn, abandons her three children from a previous marriage, all under age 4, in the woods to die at the demand of her boyfriend Sargent Jones. The taxi driver who drove Jessie to the isolated area went back to retrieve the children and turned them over to a state agency.

1950 Abu is born “James Lee Jones, Jr.” to Jessie Burn and Sargent James Lee Jones in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

1955-1967(ish) Sargent Jones severely physically and verbally abuses Abu, including hanging him in a closet by tying a wet thin piece of leather around the head of his penis and the other end to a clothing hook. Abu is hospitalized for mental health issues. He tells the mental hospital staff he wants to stay there. Abu’s father refuses to participate in family therapy. Abu tries to run away from home many times, first at the age of 8. Abu leaves home for good at the age of 17, entering into the Army.

1971 The first clinical record reference is made to Abu’s “hysterical blindness” (disassociation/blackouts).

1972 While at the Federal Youth Facility, Abu kills a fellow inmate who was the leader of a group who repeatedly teased, beat, and raped Abu. At his trial, the judge recommends placement in a facility where Abu could receive psychiatric treatment. Abu is never placed in any such facility.

1985 Abu moves to Tennessee and finds work at the Nashville Baptist Publishing Board. His boss, Allen Boyd, is a leader in the Southern Gospel Ministry (SGM), a revolutionary religious group focused on black liberation. Abu joins the group. At Abu’s trial, this religious group was incorrectly presented to the jury as a gang.

1986 The Southeastern Gospel Ministry sends out Abu and other SGM member Devalle Miller with unloaded guns to confront a man named Patrick Daniels who was selling drugs to children in the neighborhood. Abu blacks out. Daniels is found dead, stabbed with a knife. Daniel’s girlfriend, Norma Norman, was also stabbed and lived.

Abu goes to work the next day. Miller flees the state. Abu is told by officers that they found blood on his clothes and is arrested for the crime. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) lab report is returned: no blood on Abu’s clothes. Miller’s clothes are not tested.

*The crime produced copious blood splatter because Daniels was stabbed around the heart. In a federal hearing years later, the State of Georgia Medical Examiner testified (without rebuttal) that the murderer would have definitely had blood splatter on his clothes.

1987 The prosecution meets with Miller on four separate occasions for a total of 13 hours to prepare his testimony. Meanwhile, Abu’s attorney does not work on his case until two weeks before the trial and does not attend the last day of jury selection. Only $5,000 is spent on Abu’s case. (Over $100,000 is usual for capital murder cases.) No crime scene evidence is presented. There is no mention of Abu’s mental health due to the abuse he endured as a child. Jury returns guilty verdict and death sentence.

1998 A Federal District Court overturned Abu’s death sentence upon finding “ineffective assistance of the counsel at sentencing, a Sixth Amendment violation.” (In other words, the court found that Abu did not have enough help from his lawyer as required by the Constitution.)

2000 In a split decision, the Sixth Circuit court reversed and reinstated Abu’s death sentence. Judge Cole writes a strongly worded dissent.

2002 An execution date is set for Abu. Two days prior, the United States Supreme Court issues a stay (puts it on hold).

2003 Abu’s execution date is set again, and it is again stayed by the Sixth Circuit court.

2011 The ABA Journal publishes an article titled Lawyer's Attempt to Keep His Head Above Water Landed a Client on Death Row. Abu’s original trial lawyer, Lionel Barrett, is quoted: “It is every lawyer’s nightmare to have a case like this in their life, a case they screwed up so badly. This case is my nightmare … Abu-Ali is on death row because of me. I failed him … I have no excuse. This is the only case in my entire career that I would do anything to be able to do over again.”

2011 In a split decision, the Sixth Circuit court rules again against Abu on his claims of misconduct on the original trial prosecutor (John Zimmerman). Again, Judge Cole writes a strong dissent: “[The prosecutor] desecrated his noble role. He failed grossly in his duty to act as the representative for a sovereignty whose interest in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. Abdur’Rahman may face the ultimate penalty as a result; justice will bear a scar.”

*The Sixth Circuit reviewed each claim individually, instead of reviewing the cumulative effect on Abu’s trial. (There is a split view in federal circuit court on whether or not this should be the way we look at misconduct in trials.) Either way, the Sixth Circuit court refused to address the issue of whether Abu’s trial, viewed as a whole, was fundamentally unfair.

2012 Abu’s execution date is again set, but then stayed pending approval of the method-of-execution decision in Tennessee. Read more about the three-drug lethal injection debate here.

2015 John Zimmerman (the prosecutor in Abu’s original trial) is accused of saying, “Blacks hate Mexicans,” in a session discussing how to pick juries.

2018 Tennessee Supreme Court rules lethal injection executions can proceed. Abu’s execution date is again set for April 9, 2020.

2019 With no warning, the Tennessee Supreme Court changes Abu’s execution date to April 16. (The original date, April 9, is Maundy Thursday. April 16 is the Thursday following Easter.)

2019 Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins approves a deal agreed on by Abu’s attorney, the victim’s family, and the Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk to remove Abu’s death sentence and replace it with three life sentences. The Davidson County Criminal Court hearing that led to this agreement focused on the misconduct of the original prosecutor, John Zimmerman, including when he improperly blocked three black members of the jury pool.

A few weeks later, the State of Tennessee Attorney General’s Office announces an appeal of the order from Davidson County Criminal Court. Abu’s legal representation responds: “The Tennessee Constitution gives the District Attorney [Glenn Funk] the exclusive authority to handle criminal cases within his district...The Attorney General [Herbert Slatery] is not seeking to uphold our most cherished constitutional principles. Instead, [he] is taking a stand for racism and a prosecutor’s violation of his constitutional and ethical duties.”

The Tennessee Supreme Court stays (puts on hold) Abu’s former April 16 execution date, giving the Tennessee Criminal Court of Appeals more time to consider whether he should be on death row at all.

2020 Tennessee Episcopalians pass a resolution calling for Abu to be moved off death row. The article titled Nashville cathedral rallies behind Episcopalian on Tennessee’s death row as court case intensifies is published.

The first week of June, The Tennesseean and The Nashville Scene both publish articles highlighting the racist prosecutorial misconduct in Abu’s case.

“As crowds take to the streets to protest systemic racism, the state is going to court to argue a man should be put to death despite evidence racial profiling might have marred his murder trial.”
-Adam Tamburin, Nashville Tennessean

On June 9, The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals hears Abu-Ali Abdur’rahman v. State of Tennessee.

In response to the June 25 announcement of the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission initiative to address racial bias in the legal system, an op-ed is published titled TN Courts to Address Racial Bias? Start with Abu.

On October 1, You Don’t Know Me premiers at The Nashville Film Festival. The film description reads:

“You don’t know TN death row inmate Abu-Ali Abdur ‘Rahman and the cascade of injustices that keep him fighting for his life. You don’t know Lionel Barrett, a celebrated defense attorney turned rural goat farmer, who inexplicably blew Abu’s case. You don’t know the prominent businessman whose mysterious cult orchestrated the crime or the deceitful DA who misled the jury. Know them--and the truth behind one of Nashville’s most notorious crimes.”

2021 On November 9, the trial court again issued an order vacating Abu's convictions. The court made very specific findings that the lead prosecutor at Abu’s trial struck jurors on the basis of their race. (This was just one instance of outrageous prosecutorial misconduct in the case.)

The State Attorney General had 30 days to appeal the order, but chose not to do so. Abu’s legal battle to set aside his death sentence finally ended in success after 30-plus years!