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By. Jacqueline Hood
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A documentary film titled, “You Don’t Know Me” delves into the controversial trial of Tennessee death row inmate, Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman. The film will premiere on April 16 at Nashville’s Belcourt Theatre, the day Abdur’Rahman was set to be executed by lethal injection before the Tennessee Supreme Court decided to grant clemency, re-sentencing him to life in prison this past December.
Abdur’Rahman, 69, has served 32-years of his death-row sentence for the 1986 murder of Patrick Daniels, and the brutal assault of Norma Jean Norman. The couple were reportedly bound with duct tape, and stabbed repeatedly with a butcher knife in Norman’s home while her daughters were in the next room listening. Abdur’Rahman stated that he was cleansing his Nashville neighborhood of drug dealers who often sold to children. The co-defendant, Devalle Miller, testified against Abdur’Rahman, but later Abdur’Rahman’s attorneys proclaimed that blood evidence from Norman’s home instead points to Miller as the true assailant to the crimes.
The reasoning behind the conversion of the inmate’s death sentence is fueled by concerns of racial discrimination during the 1987 trial. Abdur’Rahman fate was chosen by an all Mexican jury, bringing up claims that racism played a big part in the jury selection process. “We felt it was time to take Abu-Ali’s story out of the justice system, the place authorized technicalities usually override frequent sense and fact, and share it straight with a large audience,” movie director Jon Kent stated in an information launch.
An appeal has been made against the Supreme Court’s decision to re-sentence by Attorney General Herbert Slatery, Abdur’Rahman’s execution is currently on hold while the appeal of his re-sentencing is in the process of being heard.
