Earlier (2005) someone asked: Now it's time for a qestion..
Do you see this film as an anti-death penalty film? Considering how Harris is portrayed is this film, some people might want to see him in the electric chair instead.. or?
The conversation then strayed to 'what is a filmmaker' and this question got lost in the shuffle.....
comments? Is this an anti- death penalty film? Also consider that Harris was executed on June 30, 2004 in (where else?) Texas.
Maybe it's simply pro justice for those that are actually guilty?
The movie demonstrated that our justice system can be broken when there are corrupt people in it that don't care about justice.
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I don't think the movie is anti-death penalty as they don't spend a lot of time on the subject. I think the film is more about our legal system and how justice can be miscarried so badly when police pick and choose which evidence to accept and which to discard.
I'm pro-death penalty for the worst offenders, and after seeing this I felt if there ever was anyone deserving of the death penalty, it was David Harris.
David Harris, at age 43, was executed by lethal injection on 30 June 2004 in Huntsville, Texas for murdering a man, Mark Mays, during an attempted kidnapping. That crime occurred on 1 September 1985, and was unrelated to Harris's crime of killing the policeman in the movie.From IMDb's triva for this film.
I don't think the film is "anti-death penalty" per se, but rather lets you make up your own mind.
I myself am against it. Adams came within hours of being executed for a crime we now know he did not commit. That sort of thing happens.
Adams married a woman he met in Texas at a Capital Punishment protest rally. He now lives in (gulp!) Texas, and is a vocal opponent of the death penalty. I consider him a hero, and would love to meet him one day. (I've read his book several times and can't even count how many times I've seen the film.)
It's possible that Adams wouldn't have been prosecuted at all if not for the death penalty. See if this follows:
A cop had been killed in cold blood. Texas wanted the murderer to pay with his life. They had two suspects - Harris and Adams. Harris was too young to be sentenced to death, so the choice of the law was Adams.
Edith James (assistant to Dennis White, the defense attorney, in the case) explains this in the film: the only reason for prosecuting Adams was because they could kill him for the crime.
In 1976, there were no laws that would prevent Harris from getting the death penalty because of his age. It just wasn't as likely for a 16 year old to be sentenced to death as an adult. I haven't seen this movie in over a decade
but thought that James was just suggesting this as a reason for the Dallas
Police to have concentrated so fully on Adams. Correct me if I'm wrong.
My own belief is that before they even arrested Adams, they were already
convinced he was the killer. When 2 contradictory stories are being told to
the police, it is frequently an enormous advantage to have your story told
first. Harris had this advantage, as well as the fact that he was a gifted
con artist that could convince most people he would "give them the shirt off
his back."
Of course the movie is anti death penalty! A guy was convicted and only released after this documentary was released. This shows the thin line (no pun intended) between justice and injustice. Given the precarious nature of the justice "system", the death penalty is a dangerous punishment tool.
I think the biggest miscarriage of justice, though, was when the judge decided not to allow the evidence regarding Harris being on a crime spree. That evidence would surely have tipped the balance away from the conviction and subsequent death sentence. Given the circumstances and the fact that Harris had a rap sheet as long as his arm should surely have alerted the judge. He was later arrested holding up a convenience store and later still convicted and executed for kidnap and murder.
"In 1976, there were no laws that would prevent Harris from getting the death penalty because of his age"
Since I dabble in this stuff for a living I was wondering what is your source for this information??
My understanding is that Texas law set the age limit at 17 back in 1973. In fact according to http://www.law.onu.edu/faculty/streib/juvdeath.pdf, no executees in Texas have committed their crime under the age of 17 since 1973 (see Table 1 on page 4).
Just trying to get my facts straight...
I don't believe the movie has any anti-death penalty agenda. That said, Randall Adams is understandably anti-death penalty outside of the film's context; I don't know what Errol Morris' stance is.
The film's core purpose is instead to make a case for the miscarriage of criminal justice. The material in the film, however, could certainly be used to support an argument against the death penalty, namely, that the potential for killing an innocent soul is too great a risk. However, the film never spends any time specifically discussing or arguing for this issue. Adams details the taunts he receives from the guards, who use the bloody aspects of electrocution as fodder against him, but it never gets beyond this.
wrg6,
After looking into this further, I stand corrected and my opening sentence was incorrect. My source of information was the Dallas Morning News but on further reflection that article just implied the 16-year old defendant could receive the death penalty. Sorry for the late reply.
Errol Morris is against the death penalty, and _The Thin Blue Line_ is one of his anit-death penalty films. I urge you to see _Mr. Death_, about the engineer who built many of the death contraptions used to kill prisoners in several different states. _Mr. Death_ is every bit as good a documentary as this one, and it approaches the problem of our nation's clinging to the death penalty in a fresh way.
Perhaps the strongest thesis in _The Thin Blue Line_ is the one that suggests the death penalty alters the process of the justice system itself. As others have said here, if there were no death penalty, then the prosecutors would not have focused so quickly on Adams while excluding Harris. As Adams said of the prosecutor in a death-penalty state, he is no longer seeking to establish the truth of what happened in order to establish justice, "He's trying to kill you."
Good points. And there are the comments by Edith James (public defender) where she says that she believed the reason they went after Adams, in her opinion, was because he could get the death penalty and David Harris couldn't. I think this is combined with the lengthy conviction record for the prosecutor (Mulder), which resulted in a high rate of death sentences.
I've never seen Mr. Death (one of the few Morris movies I haven't). I'm actually pro-death penalty in theory, but not so much in practice (i.e., there are many problems with the way it's used. When it works, I'm okay with it.) I respect Morris' presentation skills immensely, however, and just hope he doesn't go all Michael Moore on us with his next film.
I think it's pro death penalty because it shows how much Harris deserved it, but it also shows how all doubt has to be removed regarding guilt before someone gets to sent to their death.
We could debate up and down about the death penalty but the case of Adams doesn't say a whole lot because he wasn't put to death. Only one person was put to death, and he was definitely guilty.
If you're using Adam's case then maybe we should be debating life sentences.
It seems that most folks think it is anti death, while others think it is pro death. I would like to make some observations on this as well as your reply.
You said:
"I think it's pro death penalty because it shows how much Harris deserved it, but it also shows how all doubt has to be removed regarding guilt before someone gets to sent to their death."
First, I would guess that you are in favor of capital punishment (from your comment- he deserved it), which I also find interesting because most people who LIKE the movie intrepet the movie to fall on their side of the issue. Actually the law does not require "all doubt to be removed". A cursory examination of many death row inmates quickly reveals varying levels of "doubt" though obviously doubt that is acceptable on some level. (or else they wouldn't be on death row)
"We could debate up and down about the death penalty but the case of Adams doesn't say a whole lot because he wasn't put to death. Only one person was put to death, and he was definitely guilty."
There are three points I would like to make here. First, I don't think someone has to be put to death to say something important about capital punishment. There are over 3,000 people on death row and there are countless others with similar accusations who never see death row.
IMHO, the point of the movie is that the process for placing someone on death row is NOT as careful and thorough as we would hope it would be. Let's remember that Adams was found to "deserve it" by a judge and a jury. Pointing out that mistakes are made at the local level is an important point about capital punishment, but not very palatable for those who favor its use.
Second, if the system was in fact more careful, then we can be sure that Harris' victims subsequent to the police officer's murder would have been spared their victimization, and the person whom he was executed for killing, would not have been killed by him.
Finally, after someone is executed, who is going to talk about the case? We rarely even talk about cases involving defendants already awaiting execution. We tend to know more about those crimes that happen close-by, or those very rare cases that make it to national (or international) media- like Jamal. There is little doubt that the film saved Adams from the death chamber, despite the fact that his case had such glaring injustices. If the nation was better informed, and if we actually discussed (as a nation) those awaiting execution, we would have watched the film and went "no kidding, I knew that" instead of thinking- "how could that happen?"
Discussing cases of those who were almost executed, or those awaiting execution, can offer lots of good information on how the system operates and gives us the bonus of perhaps correcting grave legal mistakes. That information can help us (on both sides of the issues) make more informed, moral decisions about this issue.(so everybody wins!!)
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I would like to argue this point. I am not totally against the death penalty. However, if I was making the laws, I would use a strict criteria for it.
I would not give the death penalty to a person for one murder, even if it was a cop (that's why they wanted blood.) As you can see from this movie, it is possible to wrongly convict a person. I would give the death penalty to a serial murderer, anyone that has killed 6 or more people; Jeffrey Daumer or the Zodiac killer are good examples. To me, anyone that could repeatedly kill people is obviously sick and twisted and can't live in society. It's unlikely that one person would be wrongly convicted that many times. Not too many people get rehabilitated in jail. Why imprison them for life? That means that 1) Taxpayers are supporting them 2) they could escape (there were 2 prison outbreaks a week apart when I lived in Sante Fe. I lived alone and sweated that one for awhile.)
In the case of raping and murdering little girls I would give them 2 or 3 chances at best. That is such a sick crime and children don't have the ability to defend themselves as an adult might.
But these people described to Randall Adams what happens when a person gets electrocuted. Sounds like they enjoyed watching. These are the sick *beep*ers. Maybe they should be removed from society. I wonder if that DA enjoyed roughing his wife up?
"There is little doubt that the film saved Adams from the death chamber,"
Several years before Morris started working on his film, the U.S. Supreme Court had overturned Adam's death sentence and it was changed to life in prison.
I agree with your other comments.
Thanks for the heads up!
shareAs the movie explains, when the Supreme Court decided against the sentence it implied legal grounds for a retrial. Then the penalty was changed to life in order to avoid a retrial. Since the sentence changed the Supreme Court decision no longer applied to the legal status of the case. Otherwise if the DA wanted a death sentence Adams would had been retried again, and possibly exonerated.
shareI disagree with you in only one point:
The DA and the judge deliberately hid proof. Deliberately, that was not a mistake. They both chose to hide David's crime spree, they both say nil when that lady said she recognized Harris when in fact she didn't pick him at the line, the DA lied about the whereabouts of the 3 last witnesses whey the defense wanted to refute them. It was not a mistake. The judge even said to the defense lawyer "Why do you care, it's a drifter anyways". Even David agreed that he lied and the DA forced him to lie about if he was getting a deal to avoid conviction for his past record.
Only terrible countries led by true dictators have the death penalty. Like Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Vietnam, Yemen and U.S.A.
I'm amazed this question needed to be asked. I'm further amazed that some people thought it was pro death penalty?! XD
I believe the events in this film are incredibly rare, I don't think there's a bunch of innocent people waiting to be executed but it does show quite clearly how the death penalty allows criminal cases to be turned into witch hunts. When a crime is hateful or emotive enough, people demand the ultimate reparation, this can blind them to the truth or can allow the truth to be overshadowed by the need to satisfy this blood lust.
Even when guilt is certain though, punitive justice is wrong. People are not born criminals or "evil", despite what "good" Christian folk may believe. What we do now is punish people for having really *beep* lives or mental illness, the idea is repulsive. People whose crimes are predicated by a lifetime of poverty, violence, abuse and/or illness are put to death. What a disgusting system, truly shameful. :(
People are not born criminals or "evil", despite what "good" Christian folk may believe. What we do now is punish people for having really *beep* lives or mental illness, the idea is repulsive. People whose crimes are predicated by a lifetime of poverty, violence, abuse and/or illness are put to death. What a disgusting system, truly shameful.
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Only 14 states out of 50 use the death penalty in the US.