Visit with a Death Row Inmate – 

A Lesson on Teaching God’s Love

(Originally, I wrote this essay as a weekly installment of The Pastor’s Pen, a column in the newsletter of a local church in Nashville, TN where I served as Senior Pastor from October 2000 to May 2008)

On Thursday, November 8^th, I had the experience of a lifetime.  I visited Abu Ali, a death row inmate whose execution is imminent.  Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court summarily refused to hear his appeal of his death sentence.  The Tennessee State Supreme Court soon will set a date of execution.  Although another appeal has been made with the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, it appears Ali has exhausted all of the appeals, which the system offers.  Excluding an unforeseeable stay of execution, court ruling or a commutation of his sentence by the Governor of Tennessee, Abu Ali will be put to death by the State shortly after the New Year begins.  However, our conversation of an hour and a half, including a colleague of mine, challenged me to more seriously consider the meaning and worth of life.  Having spent fourteen years on death row, Abu greatly desires the inherent worth and dignity of his life on earth and his gifts as a spiritual being are not blankly dismissed.

An unflinching and misguided loyalty significantly contributed to Abu’s death sentence.  He acknowledges his presence at the murder of a drug dealer and the assault on the drug dealer’s wife.  Abu participated in this crime because of his unrelenting belief that children and youth should be protected from violence, physical and systemic.  Because Abu considers drug dealing an assault on future generations of our children, he went to scare this drug dealer.  Unbeknownst to him, his counterpart turned violent and began stabbing the drug dealer and then attacked the wife.  Abu, realizing that children were present, immediately moved to protect them and ensure they would not be harmed. 

Suffering from PTS, posttraumatic stress syndrome, Abu blocked out the entire episode.  When subsequently questioned by police detectives, Abu was virtually unable to recall any details.  Thus, he could not adequately exercise his civil and legal rights.  However, his counterpart fled the state; when captured, this man immediately made a deal with the cops and prosecution by naming Abu Ali as the main perpetrator of the crime.  Whereas Abu could have named his counterpart and made a deal, Abu’s sense of loyalty would not let him do so.  Abu now realizes just how misdirected his loyalty was and has been throughout his life.

In addition to an unwavering commitment to children and youth and his virtue of loyalty, Abu deeply values his relationship with God.  He says, had he been taught the love of God and its universal application to all people, he would not have ended up on death row.  Abu’s childhood was simply horrible.  A MP (military police), Abu’s father disciplined him with a bully club and other torture tactics.  Abu would be locked in closets for hours without light, food or water.  Those despicable acts culminated in the posttraumatic stress syndrome that ultimately undermined Abu’s ability to assist his attorneys in the preparation of an adequate defense.  Yet, Abu insists all that horror and its ensuing consequences could have been nullified by God’s love.  Fortunately, Abu has found the love of God.  He shares it with his fellow inmates.  He firmly believes God’s love makes the ultimate difference in determining one’s fate in life.  It can arrest the emergence of a potential felon.  Also, it fundamentally rehabilitates hardened criminals into productive and contributing members of society.