08 December 2020 :
The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals has vacated a court-approved agreement to resentence death-row prisoner Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman to life. The intermediate appeals court held that the Davidson County trial court lacked jurisdiction to resentence Abdur’Rahman without first making a determination that he was legally entitled to post-conviction relief from his conviction and death sentence. Abdur’Rahman had unsuccessfully challenged his conviction on the grounds that a trial prosecutor who had a history of racial discrimination in the exercise of jury challenges had unconstitutionally excluded Black jurors from his case because of their race. He attempted to renew that challenge in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Foster v. Chapman, which overturned a Georgia death-row prisoner’s conviction because of discriminatory jury selection practices. The county district attorney general conceded that Abdur’Rahman’s death sentence was a product of racial discrimination and reached a plea agreement in which Abdur’Rahman would be resentenced to life in prison. The appeals court returned the case to the Davidson County Court to determine whether Abdur’Rahman is entitled to sentencing relief under the limited grounds allowed by the state’s post-conviction statute.
