He denied having had anything to do with the murder, claiming he had said otherwise only to "impress" his friends. But when police told him that a ballistics test established that a pistol he had stolen from his father was the murder weapon, Harris changed his story.
He now claimed that he had been present at the shooting, but that it had been committed by a hitchhiker he had picked up — Adams. Adams, an Ohio native working in Dallas, was taken in for questioning. He denied any knowledge of the crime, but he did give a detailed statement describing his activities the day before the murder. Police told him he had failed a polygraph test and that Harris had passed one, but Adams remained resolute in asserting his innocence.
Harris was only sixteen and ineligible for the death penalty; Adams was twenty-seven and thus could be executed. At trial before Dallas County District Court Judge Don Metcalfe and a jury, Turko testified that she had not seen the killer clearly, but that his hair was the color of Adams's.
She also said that the killer wore a coat with a fur collar. Harris had such a coat, but Adams did not. Adams took the stand and emphatically denied having any knowledge of the crime. But then the prosecution sprang two surprises.
The first was the introduction of Adams's purported signed statement, which police and prosecutors claimed was a confession, although it said only — falsely, according to Adams — that when he was in the car with Harris, they had at one point been near the crime scene. The second was the testimony of three purported eyewitnesses whose existence had until then been unknown to the defense. One of these witnesses, Michael Randell, testified that he had driven by the scene shortly before the murder and, in the car that had been stopped by the officers, had seen two persons, one of whom he claimed was Adams.
The other two witnesses, Robert and Emily Miller, had happened by at about the same time, but claimed to have seen only one person in the car — Adams. Because the eyewitnesses were called only to rebut Adams's testimony, prosecutors claimed that Texas law did not require them to inform the defense of their existence before they testified.
The weekend after their surprise testimony, however, the defense learned that Emily Miller had initially told police that the man she had seen appeared to be Mexican or a light-skinned African American. When the defense asked to recall the Millers to testify, the prosecution claimed that the couple had left town. In fact, the Millers had only moved from one part of Dallas to another. When the defense asked to introduce Emily Miller's statement, Judge Metcalfe would not allow it.
He said it would be unfair to impeach her credibility when she was not available for further examination. The jury quickly returned a verdict of guilty and turned to sentencing.
Under Texas law, in order for Adams to be sentenced to death, the jury was required to determine, among other things, whether there was "beyond a reasonable doubt [a] probability" that he or she would commit future acts of violence. To establish that Adams met that oxymoronic criterion, the prosecution called Dr. James Grigson, a Dallas psychiatrist known as "Dr. Death," and Dr. Turn on more accessible mode.
Turn off more accessible mode. Skip Ribbon Commands. Skip to main content. Turn off Animations. Turn on Animations. Make a Gift. The two ended up spending several hours together, smoking marijuana, drinking, and watching porn at a drive-in theater before Harris dropped Adams off at the motel where he was staying.
Later, Harris was pulled over for driving without headlights. He shot Officer Robert Wood at least four times, killing him. A second officer, Teresa Turko, was drinking a milkshake in the patrol car at the time. As Harris sped away, she shot at his car, but missed. Adams was questioned by the police, and signed a statement detailing his activities on the day of the crime. At trial, police used this statement as an admission of guilt because Adams mentioned that he had been near the intersection of the shooting earlier in the day.
A prosecution psychologist , Dr. James Grigson — known as Doctor Death, having testified in more than trials that resulted in death sentences — told the jury that Adams would remain an ongoing menace if kept alive.
Texas U. Rather than have the case re-tried, Governor Bill Clements commuted Adams's sentence to life imprisonment. In , a young filmmaker, Errol Morris , came to Dallas to work on a documentary about Grigson. When he met Adams, Morris thought he was an unlikely killer and decided to take a closer look. Morris soon discovered that Harris had been compiling a criminal record of some magnitude. Morris discovered other problems with several witnesses who testified at Adams' trial. David Ray Harris recanted and said in a recorded interview for the documentary that Adams was innocent.
Exoneration In , the Court of Appeal overturned Adams' conviction on the grounds of malfeasance by the prosecutor Douglas D. Mulder and perjurious inconsistencies in the testimony of another key witness, Emily Miller. Ex parte Adams S. Mulder withheld a statement by Emily Miller to the police that cast doubt on her credibility, and allowed her to give perjured testimony.
Further, the court found that after Adams' attorney discovered the statement late in Adams' trial, Mulder falsely told the court that he did not know the witness' whereabouts. The prosecution then dropped charges. David Ray Harris was later executed on separate charges for the murder of Mark Mays. Adams now works as an anti- death penalty activist.
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