Randall Dale Adams (born 1949) was falsely convicted of murdering a police officer and sentenced to death. He served more than 12 years in prison, at one point coming within 72 hours of being put to death.^[1][2] His death sentence was reduced through appeal to the United States Supreme Court,^[3] and eight years later he was released when evidence was uncovered to prove his innocence. Adams' case is profiled in the documentary The Thin Blue Line.^[4]

Contents 1 The case 2 Exoneration 3 Lawsuit over the story 4 References 5 See also 6 External links

[edit] The case

Adams was sentenced to death for the November 28, 1976 murder of police officer Robert Wood in Dallas, Texas.^[5] Teresa Turko, Wood's partner, was not injured, but neither witnessed who killed Wood nor remembered the license plate number of the killer's car. Evidence in the case pointed to David Ray Harris, who may have been an unsatisfactory suspect to police because he was sixteen years old and, under Texas law, could not be sentenced to death. At Adams' trial, Harris named Adams as the shooter, and Harris was soon back on the streets. A prosecution psychologist, Dr. James Grigson – known as Doctor Death,^[6] having testified in more than 100 trials that resulted in death sentences – told the jury that Adams would be an ongoing menace if kept alive.^[7] Judge Donald Metcalfe presided over the Dallas County District Court case and the case was then upheld by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals by a 9-0 unanimous decision.

Subsequently, Adams' case came before the United States Supreme Court (Adams v. Texas 448 U.S. 38 (1980)),^[8] which overturned his death sentence by an 8-1 majority on the grounds that Texas's jury selection process excluded persons who had objections to the death penalty. Rather than have the case re-tried, Governor Bill Clements commuted Adams's sentence to life imprisonment.

In 1985, a young filmmaker, Errol Morris, came to Dallas to work on a documentary about Grigson.^[9] When he met Adams, Morris thought he was an unlikely killer and decided to take a closer look. Morris soon discovered that Harris had accumulated a criminal record of some magnitude. Morris discovered other problems with several witnesses who testified at Adams' trial saying they committed perjury.^[10] David Ray Harris recanted and said in a recorded interview for the documentary that Adams was innocent.^[11] In 1989 during the midst of the doubts about the case, the Texas Parole Board denied Adams parole.^[12]

[edit] Exoneration

In 1989, the Court of Appeal in Ex parte Adams (768 S.W.2d 281) overturned Adams' conviction on the grounds of malfeasance by the prosecutor Douglas D. Mulder and perjurious inconsistencies in the testimony of another key witness, Emily Miller.^[13][14] The appeals court found that prosecutor Mulder withheld a statement by Emily Miller to the police that cast doubt on her credibility, and allowed her to give perjured testimony. Further, the court found that after Adams' attorney discovered the statement late in Adams' trial, Mulder falsely told the court that he did not know the witness' whereabouts. The case remained in limbo.^[15] In 1981, Mulder returned to practice private law in Dallas,^[16] and the new prosecution then dropped charges in 1989.^[17] The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said, and Adams agreed, that "conviction was unfair mainly because of prosecutor Doug Mulder."^[18][19]

In 2004, David Ray Harris was put to death in Texas for the unrelated murder of Mark Mays.^[20][21] Adams now works as an anti-death penalty activist.

[edit] Lawsuit over the story

After release from prison, Adams ended up in a legal battle with Morris concerning the rights to his story. The matter was settled out of court after Adams was granted sole use of anything written or made on the subject of his life.^[22] Adams said of the matter: "Mr. Morris felt he had the exclusive rights to my life story. ... I did not sue Errol Morris for any money or any percentages of The Thin Blue Line, though the media portrayed it that way."^[23]

Morris, for his part, remembers: "When he got out, he became very angry at the fact that he had signed a release giving me rights to his life story. And he felt as though I had stolen something from him. Maybe I had, maybe I just don't understand what it's like to be in prison for that long, for a crime you hadn't committed. In a certain sense, the whole crazy deal with the release was fueled by my relationship with his attorney. And it's a long, complicated story, but I guess when people are involved, there's always a mess somewhere."^[24]

At a legislative hearing, Adams said:

“

The man you see before you is here by the grace of God. The fact that it took 12 and a half years and a movie to prove my innocence should scare the hell out of everyone in this room and, if it doesn’t, then that scares the hell out of me.[25]

”

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• List of exonerated death row inmates

[edit] External links

• Randall Dale Adams story from Northwestern University School of Law's Center on Wrongful Convictions