TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Dec 10, 2021

Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III has notified Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk that the state will not appeal a recent modification to the sentence for Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman. In 2019, Funk obtained an agreed order modifying Abdur’Rahman’s death sentence to life imprisonment. The attorney general challenged the action and the Court of Criminal Appeals vacated the order and remanded the case for further proceedings. Funk obtained a new order from the trial court and although Slatery maintains it too violates the law, his office made the decision not to appeal further. Slatery, however, said in his letter that the decision should not be interpreted as “tacit approval of the order obtained."