TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/030689/03068900.008

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 4KB | 68 lines

LAW, Page 56

No Happy Ending

Parole board keeps The Thin Blue Line hero behind bars


    The plot has all the elements of an old-fashioned detective
movie. A police officer is brutally gunned down and a frantic
manhunt ensues. A long-haired laborer is convicted of the murder
after his companion on the fateful night testifies against him. A
filmmaker becomes obsessed with the case and produces a gritty
documentary in which the prosecution's witnesses shed doubt on
their own testimony. Ideally, there should be a happy cinematic
ending, as the wrongly convicted man leaves prison after twelve
years to resume his shattered life.

    But last week a Texas parole board decided that happy endings
are only for movies. By a 2-to-1 vote, the board refused to release
Randall Adams, whose plight director Errol Morris publicized in his
documentary The Thin Blue Line, which has enjoyed a cultlike
popularity since its release last summer. Despite a lower-court
recommendation at a hearing last December that Adams be retried,
and even though the companion who accused him has all but confessed
to the murder, the board concluded that the heinous nature of the
crime dictated that Adams should remain in prison.

    Adams' ordeal began during Thanksgiving weekend in 1976, when
16-year-old David Harris offered him a lift. The two spent the day
tooling around Dallas, ending up at a drive-in. Adams claims that
Harris dropped him off at his motel around 10 p.m. Harris testified
that they left the drive-in about midnight, with Adams driving
Harris' stolen car. When police officer Robert Wood pulled the car
over, Harris said, Adams pulled out a .22 pistol and fired five
shots into the policeman. (It was later learned that Harris had
previously stolen the weapon.)

    The Dallas police interrogated Harris after they heard that he
had been boasting to friends about killing a policeman.
Nonetheless, when Harris fingered Adams, the police believed him.
Within six months, Adams was convicted and sentenced to die. Later
Governor William Clements commuted his sentence to life.

    Enter Errol Morris. While making a documentary in 1985 about
a psychiatrist who testifies in death-penalty cases, the director
stumbled across Adams' story. "I was interested enough that I
wanted the details," Morris recalls. What he found in the
prosecutor's files shocked him. The slain officer's partner, who
testified that the killer had bushy hair like Adams', had at first
told investigators that the car window "was too dirty to see
through." Prosecutor Doug Mulder argued that the defense could not
cross-examine a witness because she was traveling. In fact, she was
staying at a Dallas hotel, possibly with the prosecutor's
knowledge. She revealed to Morris that she had failed to pick Adams
out of a lineup.

    Perhaps the most chilling part of the movie is Harris' virtual
confession to the crime. Harris, who is on death row for a 1985
murder, tells Morris that he is sure Adams is innocent "because I'm
the one who knows." At the December hearing, Harris admitted that
he was alone and holding the gun when it went off. Mulder, who has
since left the D.A.'s office, discounts the admission. Says he:
"Before it's all said and done, he'll recant again." Still,
prosecutors have not contested the December recommendation.

    The parole board is not scheduled to reconsider Adams' case
until December 1990. While he awaits final word on a new trial,
Adams remains hopeful. "Eventually, I will win," he says.
Meanwhile, Morris' documentary continues to gain attention and
praise. The Thin Blue Line has won awards from the New York Film
Critics' Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. What it
has yet to win is Randall Adams' release.