Randall Dale Adams
| Randall Dale Adams | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 17, 1948 Grove City, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | October 30, 2010 (aged 61) Washington Court House, Ohio, U.S. |
| Occupation | U.S. anti death-penalty activist |
| Criminal charge | Murder |
| Criminal penalty | Death by lethal injection; commuted to life in prison |
| Criminal status | Convicted (1977); overturned (1989) |
| Spouse(s) | Jill Fratta |
Randall Dale Adams (December 17, 1948 – October 30, 2010) was an American former prison inmate. He 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 picked him up earlier on the day of the shooting. Adams said his own car had run out of gasoline and Harris gave him a ride. They'd 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.
Randall Adams was the subject of the 1988 documentary film The Thin Blue Line. It is 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, who was incarcerated for the 1985 murder of Mark Mays, Morris was able to audio record him giving a pseudo-confession to the Wood murder. In 2004, Harris was executed by lethal injection for Mays' murder. He was not charged with Robert Woods' murder.
Adams, who received no compensation, died of a brain tumor on October 30, 2010 in Washington Court House, Ohio.
Adams was born in Grove City, Ohio, the youngest of five children of a woman named Mildred and a miner who died of Coalworker's pneumoconiosis. Adams graduated from high school in 1967, and spent three years as a U.S. Army paratrooper.
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