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Co-defendant Miller, the state’s star witness, testified that he and Abdur’Rahman went to Daniels’ home together, but that Abdur’Rahman’s intent was to steal and kill. He told jurors that he watched as Abdur’Rahman, still wearing that long, dark wool coat, climbed on top of Daniels as the victim begged for his life and then repeatedly plunged the knife into his chest. Jurors noticed dark stains on the coat, which they were led to believe was Daniels’ blood.
Meanwhile, Zimmermann was forging ahead on the prosecution. He supplied state mental health officials examining Abdur’Rahman with information about the defendant’s second-degree murder conviction in 1972, while he was in prison. The prosecutor, in a memo, wrote that Abdur’Rahman had not raised mental illness as his defense then, and that the murder had been about a drug turf war.
But according to court records, Zimmermann had in his possession documentation that Abdur’Rahman had been raped in prison in 1972, that he feared being raped again, and that he had claimed the only way to eliminate the threat was to kill the predator. Moreover, his primary defense in the incident was that he was mentally ill.
Abdur’Rahman’s case, which is once again in the hands of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Cincinnati, has been passed up and down the state and federal appellate systems more times than Brett Favre comebacks. At the heart of the appeal is one question: Did Barrett’s ineffective representation, combined with claims of prosecutorial misconduct, cause Abdur’Rahman’s trial to be constitutionally flawed?
“We agree with the various court rulings that the defendant received a fair trial and competent representation as these conclusions are based upon a thorough review of the entire record,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. “While the courts have all agreed that there were deficiencies in Mr. Barrett’s performance, every state and federal judge, except for [U.S. District Judge Todd] Campbell [of the Middle District of Tennessee in a federal habeas corpus proceeding] in 1998, has agreed that those deficiencies did not affect the convictions or the sentence.
Recent court records contend that Miller gave multiple statements to police and prosecutors that conflicted with his trial testimony. Miller’s original statements to police echoed those of Abdur’Rahman. Only days before trial, Miller suddenly revised his testimony to claim that Abdur’Rahman went to Daniels’ home with the intent to kill him. Again, Barrett never knew about these conflicting statements because he never asked for them and prosecutors never disclosed them.
Barrett says he can only accept responsibility for his own actions. His client deserved better, he says. “I should have spent a lot more time investigating the facts. I should have interviewed his family. I should have explored his mental illness. I should have told the judge the morning of the trial that I wasn’t ready to go forward and just refused to do it.”
That same day Barrett notified Davidson County Assistant District Attorney John Zimmermann that he might pursue a mental illness defense. Zimmermann responded with a motion in limine, arguing that there was no evidence that Abdur’Rahman suffered any “mental disease, defect, emotional disturbance or even a personality disorder.” Since Barrett had offered no evidence to support a mental illness defense, the judge ruled for the prosecution.
By the time he agreed to represent Abdur’Rahman, Barrett says, he had gone several years without taking off a single day from work. “I wasn’t a workaholic, because workaholics enjoy it. I had to work all the time because I was so far behind. I was burned out. I was overworked. I was in financial trouble.”
The state attorney general handling the Abdur’Rahman appeal declined to comment. However, the Davidson County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, rejects any claim that Barrett’s defense was unconstitutionally defective and denies illegally withholding material evidence from the defense.
During the sentencing phase, Abdur’- Rahman took the witness stand to plead for his life. He acknowledged that he went to Daniels’ house with Miller. He insisted that he did so on behalf of a local religious group to scare Daniels out of the neighborhood. Abdur’Rahman told jurors that he remembered taping and blindfolding Norman, but then he blacked out.