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Thread: James Lee Jones aka Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman - Tennessee

  1. #11
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    In today's decisions, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit DENIED Abdur'Rahman's subsequent appeal based on a Martinez claim.

    http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions...5a0266p-06.pdf

  2. #12
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Case files: New appeals for Tennessee death row inmates

    By Stacey Barchenger
    The Tennessean

    Lawyers have filed motions in Tennessee courts on behalf of condemned inmates that present a new, and perhaps unexpected, course of attack on the death penalty: Citing the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. The motions seek to re-open the condemned inmates' cases.

    They argue that the Supreme Court justices in the 2015 same-sex marriage case, known as Obergefell, ruled that courts cannot infringe on fundamental rights, including the right to life. The inmates say that to impose a death sentence infringes on that right.

    Many of those motions have been denied by judges, though a few are still pending.

    Here are some of those cases:

    Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman, Davidson County, motion pending: Also known as James L. Jones Jr., he was convicted for his part in a 1986 raid on a drug dealer's house in Nashville. He stormed inside with his friend DeValle Miller. The residents were bound with duct tape. Patrick Daniels died of multiple stab wounds. His girlfriend, Norman Jean Norman, survived, even though one of her attackers left a butcher knife in her back. Her two daughters hid in a bedroom until the attack was over.

    http://www.tennessean.com/story/news...ates/91294878/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  3. #13
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Nashville judge gives death row inmate new hearing

    A Nashville judge says a man on death row for nearly three decades will get a new hearing to determine if prosecutors discriminated against potential jurors based solely on their race.

    Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman, 65, has been on death row since 1987 when he was convicted in Nashville of first-degree murder and other counts in the robbery and fatal stabbing of Patrick Daniels and attack on Norma Jean Norman, who survived. Abdur'Rahman, also known as James L. Jones Jr., previously challenged his convictions arguing that prosecutors discriminated against African Americans in jury selection, but was not successful.

    However, a new order from Nashville Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins will give Abdur'Rahman's lawyer a chance to argue that again.

    Watkins writes that the U.S. Supreme Court case Foster v. Chatman potentially created new precedent that warrants an evidentiary hearing for Abdur'Rahman. That hearing has not yet been scheduled.

    http://www.tennessean.com/story/news...ring/91935718/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  4. #14
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Abdur'Rahman's petition for certiorari.

    Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
    Case Nos.: (13-6126)
    Decision Date: November 4, 2015
    Rehearing Denied: March 2, 2016

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....les/16-144.htm

  5. #15
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    An execution date has been requested.

    https://www.scribd.com/document/3716...ses#from_embed
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  6. #16
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    Tennessee Supreme Court sets execution dates for six inmates

    Dec. 5, 2019, is the new execution date for Lee Hall, also known as Leroy Hall Jr. He was convicted of murder in the burning death of his girlfriend Traci Crozier.

    The other defendants and their execution dates are Donnie Edward Johnson, May 16, 2019, convicted in 1985 of killing his wife Connie Johnson in Shelby County; Stephen Michael West, Aug. 15, 2019, convicted of the murder of Wanda Romines and the rape and murder of Sheila Romines in Union County; Charles Walton Wright, Oct. 10, 2019, convicted in 1984 of the murders of Gerald Mitchell and Douglas Alexander in Davidson County; Nicholas Todd Sutton, Feb. 20, 2020, convicted in 1985 of the murder of Carl Estep in Morgan County; and Abu-Ali Abdur' Rahman, formerly known as James Lee Jones, April 9, 2020, convicted of the 1986 murder of Patrick Daniels in Davidson County.

    https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/...nmates/483217/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  7. #17
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Rahman's petition for certiorari.

    Lower ct: Supreme Court of Tennessee, Middle Division
    Case Nos.: (M2018-01385-SC-RDO-CV)
    Decision date: October 8, 2018

    This was about the use of midazolam. Sotomayor dissented, as ever.
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  8. #18
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Nashville Death Row Prisoner Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman Gets a New Hearing

    By Steven Hale
    Nashville Scene

    As the state prepares to execute Stephen West on Thursday, a death row prisoner from Nashville will be preparing for a new court hearing in his case. The matter is urgent: The prisoner, Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman, is scheduled to be executed less than a year from now, on April 16, 2020.

    With that date looming and the state showing no signs of slowing the recently revived death penalty machine, Metro Nashville Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins will hear arguments on Aug. 28 that Abdur’Rahman’s trial was marred by a prosecutor’s racial discrimination in jury selection. Abdur’Rahman’s attorney, Bradley MacLean, filed a motion to reopen his client’s post-conviction appeals in 2016, and Watkins granted him a hearing.

    But the motion lingered without a court date — until now. MacLean will ultimately be seeking a new trial. Abdur’Rahman will almost certainly never be released from prison — along with the death sentence, the 1987 jury handed down two consecutive life sentences for other charges. He was also convicted of second-degree murder in 1972 for killing a man who’d threatened to rape him while they were both in federal prison. But if MacLean is successful, he could keep Abdur’Rahman out of the execution chamber.

    Abdur’Rahman, a black man, has been on death row for 32 years, since he was convicted of killing Patrick Daniels and attacking Norma Jean Norman during a robbery. On paper, his life before he arrived on death row looks very similar to that of the men with whom he’s shared a prison unit for more than 30 years. As a young boy, Abdur’Rahman suffered brutal physical and sexual abuse and was made all the more vulnerable by mental illness.

    But MacLean says what makes Abdur’Rahman stand out is the utter mess that was his original trial.

    “Everything that could go wrong in a capital case went wrong in Abu’s case,” MacLean tells the Scene.

    As he put it last year in a clemency petition to then-Gov. Bill Haslam (an updated version of which will be submitted to Gov. Bill Lee): “This is the only Tennessee case in which the death sentence was upheld even though all reviewing judges have found, and the prosecution has not disputed, that defense counsel’s performance was constitutionally deficient. In every other case in which judges agreed that the defense attorney’s performance was constitutionally deficient, the death sentence was vacated. In Abu-Ali’s case, his trial lawyers’ failures were extreme.”

    “This is an extraordinary case in which Abu-Ali’s trial was fundamentally unfair and unreliable due to the grossly inadequate legal representation provided by his defense attorney combined with the egregious prosecutorial misconduct committed by the lead prosecuting attorney,” MacLean later adds.

    The man who represented Abdur’Rahman in his 1987 trial agrees with MacLean’s assessment of his own work. Lionel Barrett says he was carrying an unreasonable caseload and admits he never should have taken the case. He told ABA Journal in 2011 that he did “everything I could have done wrong” and that the burden of that failure led him to leave his career as a lawyer.

    “Abu-Ali is on death row because of me,” Barrett told the publication. “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.”

    Barrett’s inadequate representation will not be the focus of the hearing later this month. But MacLean says it’s crucial context for what will be.

    “The fact that the lawyer didn’t do his job is a factor because it allowed [Assistant District Attorney John Zimmerman] to do all the shit that he did,” MacLean says.

    In his 2016 motion, which will be updated for the new hearing, MacLean argues that Zimmerman had discriminatory intent during jury selection when he struck two prospective African American jurors. Pointing to contradictions between the prosecution’s stated reasons for striking those jurors and “the truth derived from the record and the prosecution’s own notes,” MacLean argues that Zimmerman was relying on “false, racist stereotyping” of black people. MacLean argues that in the case of one prospective black male juror, Zimmerman falsely claimed the man “appeared uneducated” and “had a reduced intellect.”

    Zimmerman’s record since Abdur’Rahman’s trial would appear to back up MacLean’s characterization of his conduct back then.

    In a November 2015 letter to the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference, Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk highlights and disavows comments Zimmerman made at an annual conference. In one instance, Funk writes, Zimmerman said “he would strike jurors with a 37215 area code, an affluent part of town, if the case involved people from ‘the inner city’ because ‘in Nashville, rich people don’t care about what happens in East Nashville.’ ”

    Funk goes on: “While the racial implications in the previous comment were inferential, his next statements were blatant advice to use race in jury selection. Specifically, Mr. Zimmerman described prosecuting a conspiracy case with all Hispanic defendants. He stated he wanted an all African-American jury, because ‘all Blacks hate Mexicans.’ ”

    More recently, Zimmerman — who is now a prosecutor in Rutherford County — was accused in a lawsuit of targeting Egyptian business owners, falsely claiming they were selling illegal “marijuana derivatives.” All charges related to the bogus busts — known as “Operation Candy Crush” — were later dropped.

    Another factor that could make all the difference for Abdur’Rahman is who will be on the other side of the courtroom later this month. Although for decades lawyers from the state attorney general’s office have represented the state in proceedings related to
    Abdur’Rahman’s case, this hearing is in a Nashville criminal court. Court documents indicate that Funk’s office will be handling the hearing, although they declined to comment on the pending proceeding.

    In five years as Nashville’s district attorney, Funk has never sought the death penalty.

    https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/...-a-new-hearing
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  9. #19
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    Sigh

    Prosecutors agree to vacate death sentence for Tennessee inmate; judge has to approve deal

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Prosecutors have agreed to vacate the death sentence for Abu Ali Abdur'Rahman in exchange for three consecutive life sentences.

    During a hearing Wednesday morning, Nashville Judge Monte Watkins gave Abdur'Rahman a chance to prove why he deserves a new trial.

    In a complaint filed in 2016 , Abdur'Rahman's attorney Bradley MacLean says during the original trial, prosecutor John Zimmerman kept some African-American potential jurors from serving on the jury because of his "racist motivations."

    Judge Watkins still has to approve the deal, which would vacate the original death sentence. In return, Abdur’Rahman would withdraw his petition for a new trial.

    This isn't the first controversy surrounding Zimmermann.

    He was also the prosecutor behind the botched Operation Candy Crush raids in Rutherford County last year, when investigators seized what they thought were candies containing a form of marijuana from convenience stores.

    Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk has also raised concerns about a comment Zimmerman made during a panel at a state D.A. conference in 2015, something Funk called "blatant advice to use race in jury selection."

    Abu Ali Abdur'Rahman was sentenced to death in 1987 for binding a Nashville couple with duct tape and stabbing both Patrick Daniels and Norma Jean Norman. While Norman survived, Daniels did not.

    https://www.newschannel5.com/news/pr...nnessee-inmate
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  10. #20
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Yet another county where the DA is an activist that refuses to carry out the will of the past. DA's shouldn't have any, involvement with a case once the trial has concluded. This is how the death penalty will die, DA's refusing to fight for the sentences and letting them wither on the vine so they can preach about delays and costs. The voters don't care, the politicians don't care, the judges don't care.


    It's all so tiresome.jpg
    Last edited by Mike; 08-28-2019 at 12:08 PM.
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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