The Thin Blue Line Page #8

I was going to get my chance.

For reasons

that were never really made public...

Mr. Wade requested

the governor to commute...

Mr. Adams' death penalty to life...

and that eliminated

the possibility of a retrial...

based on the reversal.

I was absolutely shocked.

I can't help but believe...

that some of the motivation

behind that decision...

was a fear that...

Adams may be vindicated at a retrial.

I just felt they prosecuted

the wrong person. I don't know why.

I felt that some policeman,

whether in Vidor or in Dallas...

made a decision to prosecute and set

the wheels of justice in motion...

in the wrong direction and they got

going so fast no one could stop them.

So I felt it was up to me

to stop them and I didn't.

I felt it was up to the Supreme Court

and they did what they could, but...

it's all gotten messed up and derailed again.

Since his trial, I have given up

my practice of criminal law.

I have not had a jury trial...

since I heard the verdict

of this jury in this case...

and don't intend to.

I just feel like...

I'll let other people

handle these problems for a while.

Because if justice can miscarry so badly...

I'd rather do something else.

Prosecutors in Dallas have said for years...

"Any prosecutor can convict a guilty man.

"It takes a great prosecutor

to convict an innocent man. "

To this day, I think Mr. Mulder...

believes that the Adams conviction

was one of his great victories...

probably because of some reservations

he has about Adams' guilt.

I got a call one morning,

a lady here in Vidor...

had been hit over the head

with a rolling pin...

and the attacker thought

she'd been knocked unconscious...

when, in reality, she wasn't.

And she recognized the attacker

to be David Harris.

He voluntarily came to the police station.

I told him,

"David, this girl knows who you are.

"I don't even have to tell you

I know the truth.

"You know I know the truth this time. "

He said, "I was wrong.

I smoked marijuana, I was drinking.

"I don't know what got over me

but something just came over me. "

But he forgot to mention one thing,

that he was only wearing underwear.

I felt as though

the attack was sexually oriented.

He never wanted to admit that...

and, as I recall,

he never really finally admitted it.

He'd just get to where he wouldn't deny it.

He posted his bond and went to Germany.

We had a crime

with basically the same M.O. As his...

and so it led me to want to check

and see if he was in town.

I contacted the Worldwide Military Locator...

to see if, through the military,

I could locate him.

I did, and found out

that he was in prison at the time.

He really didn't remember what happened.

He said he woke up in the stockade...

and he'd been told that he beat up

one of his ranking officers.

We had another occasion

to have a crime that fit his M.O. A lot...

so I started looking for him again,

and this time...

I found him in prison in California.

So I realized again that unfortunately,

he hadn't straightened up.

He was still having a lot of problems.

I was 16 years old.

I really didn't have no real dealings

with the court systems, etc.

Didn't know how they worked, really.

Didn't know much about the law.

Just a young, dumb kid.

Police give you the time of this

and the time this happened...

and you just correlate from those events.

You just estimate from that event

what time it was.

You don't know.

You're taking a guess.

Police tell you, "It was 12:30

when this crime happened.

"What time did you leave the movie?"

"I know it was somewhere around midnight.

"It might have been before then.

I don't know.

"I didn't have a watch on. "

He went over my testimony with me

pretty extensively.

How I should answer certain questions...

things of this nature.

That's what you call "coaching the witness. "

Let's get this evidence in a spectrum

where it's going to be most effective.

At the time, I didn't really ponder on it...

but he was deceiving the jury.

He wanted to deceive justice.

That's why I think

that statue with the scales...

Justice? What is she called?

I don't know what she's called.

She's got that blindfold on.

We don't see what goes on

behind the closed doors.

I had another woman in the car.

I didn't tell them about that.

My wife'd kill me.

She would've tore my head off if she

knew I was out with another woman.

Would you tell?

That's what happened.

I was trying to get her home.

The driver's side was down because...

the lady was a little sick.

She needed some air.

Because she was pretty drunk.

See, the Millers,

one is black and one is white.

They said I was going with...

The reason I was over that night...

I was over there

messing with this man's wife.

And I ain't never gone with her in

my life. She was too old and ugly.

Like I said, the D.A. Will

put something into their mouth.

They could have

prefabricated the whole story.

They sure could have.

But what I saw is just what I saw.

That was it.

So if they got paid, they got paid for lying.

They already decided

what to do with you in the hall.

That's why they call it the Hall of

Justice, the scales are not balanced.

The scales are in the hall,

and they go up and down.

They might go up for you, favor one

way, they might go down against you.

So if the D.A. Wants you to hang

I had all these charges

still pending in Orange County.

I could have been certified as an adult...

maybe given a life sentence. I don't know.

I'm 16 years old. I know I don't want that.

That District Attorney told me,

"Don't worry about them charges. "

"I'm gonna ask your...

Defense Attorney is gonna ask you...

"if you had any kind of deal...

"or anything of that nature...

"in exchange for your testimony

in this case...

"as relating to those charges.

"Don't answer that 'Yes. ' Answer it 'No. "'

My husband,

he didn't get that good a look at him.

He wasn't sure, because they put

a bunch of them that looked alike.

They had about three or four

in the lineup that had bushy hair...

but he had his combed down,

different to what it was in the killing.

I didn't pick him out right then...

because I picked out this bushy-haired man.

I understand one other witness

did pick out the man at the lineup.

I'm not sure, but I think he did.

Of course I picked out

Randall Adams just like that.

I don't know about the others.

Evidently they did at that time.

I just took off.

It's like, kids run away...

they don't think about

where they're going to stay...

how they're going to eat, all these things.

They had that roof over their head

all their lives.

They don't really think about those things...

till you get out there and you say,

"My stomach's growling now. "

Or, "It's getting cold out here. It's raining. "

There was ice on the road.

I remember there was a car coming

pretty fast up the road behind me...

and didn't see me or something...

or was in one lane and came into

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