THE THIN BLUE LINE
A film review by Rogers Cadenhead
Copyright 1990 Rogers Cadenhead
Though I'm probably the last person on Earth to see it, I had to comment on what a remarkable documentary THE THIN BLUE LINE is. This Errol Morris film about the Randall Dale Adams capital murder case actually prompted a man's release from a life sentence. If there's any more tangible evidence of film's power to influence change, I have yet to find it.
For those who don't know about Adams, he was convicted in the late '70s on the charge of killing a Dallas police officer. Robert Wood was shot five times at close range as he approached a car for a routine traffic stop because its lights were off. By all indications, he was going to let the driver off with a warning, but he never got the chance. The driver sped off as Wood bled to death on a busy West Dallas street.
This event alone is tragic: Wood was a young officer with a wife, and though it was November, his Christmas present was already bought and hidden at home -- a bulletproof vest to keep him safe.
But the tragedy involves more than Wood, because a look at the evidence of the case (and the dubious credibility of key witnesses for the prosecution) shows that the crime had another victim: Randall Dale Adams.
Adams, a drifter from Ohio, had only recently stopped in Dallas and taken a job in the weeks before the killing. He was still living at a motel in a low-rent part of Dallas County. On Thanksgiving Weekend, on his way home from work early because his bosses had decided not to open for business, Adams ran out of gas and was walking with a gas can in hand when a man stopped his car and offered him a ride. That was David Harris, a 16-year-old West Texas teen.
The two men spent a shiftless day together, grabbing a burger, drinking beers, going to a B-movie at a drive-in and, according to Harris, smoking marijuana. That night at 12:30 a.m., someone in Harris' car shot Wood to death. Because of that fact, the stories of the two men are dramatically different about the last few hours of that day.
Adams said he was tired of hanging out with Harris -- mainly because the teen carried several guns in his car and had even fired one into the air during the day. So Adams said he got a lift to his motel and Harris drove off at about 9 or 9:30 p.m.
Harris said after the shooting that he and Adams were still together at midnight, and Adams was the driver who fired the shots as Harris cringed in the front seat. After Adams was first arrested, three witnesses appeared who placed him in the driver's seat moments before the shootings.
On its face, this may seem like an open-and-shut case against Adams, and to renowned Dallas County prosecutor Doug Mulder it was just that.
However, Adams was a man without a criminal record who had gotten a ride from Harris, while Harris was driving a car he had stolen which contained guns he had stolen. Who had more to lose when Robert Wood approached the car? After the crime, Harris went back to his native Vidor and bragged about killing a cop, a story he changed after meeting with police.
In THE THIN BLUE LINE, Morris brings out these details and other damning evidence against the legal system in Dallas County. As a native of Dallas, I think I'm justified to be frightened and repulsed by the actions of public officials against Adams. The presumption of innocence and the idea of justice were completely disregarded in this case. Adams calls Dallas "a hell on Earth," and after his treatment, the Linnell Geter case and another two that surfaced this past year, I think he's probably right. There has been little justice here.
If you want to see true, rent Morris' THE THIN BLUE LINE. The legal systems we take for granted and expect to perform without failure are often corrupted to appease the public, without regard to the rights of innocent people.
Forget FRIDAY THE 13TH or NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. The real horror stories are occurring in courtrooms and prisons.
Rogers Cadenhead, Denton, Texas
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