page_title: Randall Dale Adams
hierarchical_section_title: Randall Dale Adams
caption_attribution_description: English: Randall Dale Adams in prison, 1988
context_page_description: Randall Dale Adams was an American who was wrongfully convicted of the November 28, 1976 murder of Dallas, Texas police officer Robert W. Wood and sentenced to death. His conviction was overturned in 1989.
  Throughout his legal ordeal, Adams maintained his innocence. He insisted that the man he believed to be Wood's killer, David Ray Harris, had offered him a ride on the day of the shooting after his own car had run out of gasoline. Adams and Harris had spent several hours together but had parted ways prior to the shooting. Under an immunity agreement, Harris testified for the prosecution that Adams was the shooter of Officer Wood while he was the passenger. Based on the testimony of Harris and other alleged eyewitnesses, Adams was found guilty by a Dallas County jury and imprisoned on death row. In 1980, his sentence was commuted to life in prison.
  While incarcerated for the crime, Adams was the subject of the 1988 documentary film The Thin Blue Line, which was cited as being instrumental in his exoneration the following year. Writer–director Errol Morris knew that Harris had, on multiple occasions, bragged about shooting a police officer.
context_section_description: Randall Dale Adams (December 17, 1948 – October 30, 2010) was an American who was wrongfully convicted of the November 28, 1976 murder of Dallas, Texas police officer Robert W. Wood and sentenced to death. His conviction was overturned in 1989.
  Throughout his legal ordeal, Adams maintained his innocence. He insisted that the man he believed to be Wood's killer, David Ray Harris, had offered him a ride on the day of the shooting after his own car had run out of gasoline. Adams and Harris had spent several hours together but had parted ways prior to the shooting. Under an immunity agreement, Harris testified for the prosecution that Adams was the shooter of Officer Wood while he was the passenger. Based on the testimony of Harris and other alleged eyewitnesses, Adams was found guilty by a Dallas County jury and imprisoned on death row. In 1980, his sentence was commuted to life in prison.
  While incarcerated for the crime, Adams was the subject of the 1988 documentary film The Thin Blue Line, which was cited as being instrumental in his exoneration the following year. Writer–director Errol Morris knew that Harris had, on multiple occasions, bragged about shooting a police officer. He later uncovered evidence of prosecutorial misconduct and eyewitness misidentification. During an interview with Harris, Morris was able to record audio of him giving a pseudo-confession to the Wood murder. In 2004, Harris was executed by lethal injection for an unrelated 1985 murder. He was never charged with Robert Wood's murder.
  Six months after the film's release, Adams' conviction was overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and prosecutors declined to re-try the case. Adams received no compensation from the State of Texas for the 12 years he spent in prison. He died of a brain tumor on October 30, 2010, in Washington Court House, Ohio.
caption: Adams in prison, 1988