A week ago, as former Metro police Officer Andrew Delke was about to go to trial for the fatal 2018 shooting of Daniel Hambrick, Delke's attorney David Raybin and Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk appeared in court to announce that they’d reached a plea agreement. The deal — which saw Delke plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter and accept a three-year sentence of which he's likely to serve about half — outraged Hambrick’s family and many in the community who saw it as an example of the system’s disregard for Black people.
But it turns out that years before they were on opposing sides of the Delke case, Funk and Raybin’s paths crossed in a more friendly way. In two separate proceedings before the Board of Professional Responsibility, private attorneys representing Funk hired Raybin to provide expertise as part of their defense of Funk against complaints. The connection was first reported Friday morning by Scoop: Nashville.
The first case stemmed from the controversy over Funk’s hiring as a temporary prosecutor before he took office as Nashville’s DA. Nashville attorney Bob Boston confirmed in a statement to the Scene that he represented Funk in the matter, and retained Raybin.
“I can confirm that I, alone, represented Glenn Funk, I think a little over five years ago, in an alleged ethical BPR complaint that involved his participation in Tennessee’s then pro tem prosecutor program during a time when he was transitioning from his private practice to that of District Attorney,” Boston writes in an email. “As part of my work on that matter, I decided to retain David Raybin to provide me with two things, his historical knowledge of the application of Tennessee’s pro tem program and how it had been used previously throughout the state, and to review my analysis of the case, two decisions I solely made. David Raybin never was hired by Glenn Funk and David Raybin never represented Glenn Funk.”
The second ethics complaint was related to Funk’s handling of the domestic violence case of Nashville developer David Chase — in particular, an agreement in which charges against Chase were dropped in conjunction with Chase’s dropping of a civil suit against Metro. Documents obtained by the Scene confirm Raybin was hired as an expert by attorney Jim Kay, who represented Funk in the case. Both cases were ultimately dismissed by the Board of Professional Responsibility.
The prior connection between Funk and Raybin was not disclosed by either attorney in the run-up to the planned Delke trial. However, it’s also true that the two clashed throughout the Delke proceedings before eventually reaching the plea agreement. Raybin said that Funk had contaminated the jury pool by releasing footage of the shooting to the media, and Funk sought to have Raybin removed from the case because of Raybin’s representation of the Fraternal Order of Police.
Raybin did not respond to a request for comment, and Funk declined to comment.
