Profile of Filmmaker Errol Morris
Dallas police officer, Robert Wood, was shot five times and murdered after pulling over a vehicle for a minor traffic violation. Randall Dale Adams was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death for the crime. Adams plead "not guilty" to the charges. He claimed 16 year old David Harris, whom he had spent several hours with on the day of the crime, was the true killer. In Mark Singer's "Profile of Filmmaker Errol Morris," Singer describes Randall Adams case as it was portrayed in the movie The Thin Blue Line. Singer argues that Morris made the film to prove Adams innocence and illustrate "that Adams had received anything but a fair trial." Singer, an author for The New Yorker Magazine, took personal interest in the case because he, as well as Morris, believed Adams was innocent and deserved a new and fair trial. The prosecution won the case against Adams for three major reasons: David Harris' testimony, Prosecutor Douglas Mulder's prominence, determination, and the prosecutions three key eyewitnesses, Emily Miller, Robert Miller, and Michael Randell. After the conclusion of the trial Adams maintained his innocence and filmmaker, Errol Morris met with David Harris and began to have do
The first witness, Emily Miller, had a daughter who was facing robbery charges in another county and Mulder agreed to drop the charges in exchange for Emily's testimony. He describes her as a "bleached blonde" and says one of her childhood ambitions was to be the ". Prosecutor Mulder demanded a guilty verdict with a death penalty sentence for this trial and he was willing to go to any length to achieve that. Morris made a movie entitled The Thin Blue Line, which was a description of the actual events in the Adams homicide case. The movie was intended to prove Adams innocence by displaying the perjury committed during the trial. Morris investigated the case further and discovered it was "unfair" on constitutional grounds and Adams was in fact innocent. Throughout the excerpt Singer uses words like, "unfortunately" to depict actions Adams' lawyers did not take, and "ensconced" to describe the so-called witnesses stay at the Alamo Plaza motel. He found three witnesses to the crime scene after offering a $20,000 reward and an all expense paid stay at Dallas motel during the trial. She did not use proper English and stumbled over her words in brief and barely coherent sentences. Robert Miller was quoted as saying; "I didn't see anything. Judge Metcalf would not permit the use David Harris' extensive previous criminal record, including pending charges in another county as evidence. " These words and phrases are influential in expressing his opinion because they have negative connotations and portray the prosecution in a bad light. "Profile of Filmmaker Errol Morris" is effective in displaying the actual events in the Adams homicide case.
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