10 True Crime Documentaries That Got Cases Reopened
5. The Thin Blue Line
1988’s The Thin Blue Line is a film documenting the life of Randall Dale Adams who was convicted of the 1976 murder of a police officer named Robert Wood. Adams was sentenced to death for this crime, but always professed his innocence in the matter.
It was widely believed that the murder had actually been committed by another man, David Ray Harris, who had given Adams a lift in his car shortly after the murder had occurred. The documentary speculates that Adams was only convicted because he could be tried as an adult at the time. Harris was also known to regularly brag about having shot a police officer and during an interview, the film’s writer-director Erol Morris managed to get a recording of him confessing to the murder.
This footage was used to exonerate Adams and he was released from death row after having spent 12 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. He was never compensated for his wrongful conviction and Harris was subsequently executed for an unrelated murder. Whilst Adams never really got justice for his ordeal, if it weren’t for The Thin Blue Line, he would likely have been wrongly executed for the murder.