1:11:02
You can't, for instance,
in the Adams appeals...
1:11:05
say the appellate courts
were saying I was right or I was wrong.
1:11:09
After all, if in Austin...
1:11:12
in our state appeals court,
I was 9-0 correct...
1:11:15
and in Washington, I was 1-8 incorrect.
1:11:19
If you tally all those votes, I come out 10-8.
1:11:22
Yet the case was reversed.
1:11:26
Eight justices of the Supreme Court
were the first people to agree with me.
1:11:31
They're the only people anywhere
that ever agreed about that statute...
1:11:35
were eight justices of the Supreme Court.
1:11:40
The Dallas Morning News
had a very nice front-page story...
1:11:45
either the same day...
1:11:47
or the day after the reversal was
announced by the Supreme Court...
1:11:50
in which Henry Wade, the District Attorney...
1:11:54
vowed a retrial of Randall Dale Adams...
1:11:57
because there was no room
in his book for a cop-killer...
1:12:01
getting off with anything less
than the death penalty.
1:12:05
I took that to heart. I thought
I was going to get my chance.
1:12:09
For reasons
that were never really made public...
1:12:14
Mr. Wade requested
the governor to commute...
1:12:16
Mr. Adams' death penalty to life...
1:12:20
and that eliminated
the possibility of a retrial...
1:12:24
based on the reversal.
1:12:27
I was absolutely shocked.
1:12:30
I can't help but believe...
1:12:31
that some of the motivation
behind that decision...
1:12:34
was a fear that...
1:12:36
Adams may be vindicated at a retrial.
1:12:40
I just felt they prosecuted
the wrong person. I don't know why.
1:12:44
I felt that some policeman,
whether in Vidor or in Dallas...
1:12:48
made a decision to prosecute and set
the wheels of justice in motion...
1:12:53
in the wrong direction and they got
going so fast no one could stop them.
1:12:56
So I felt it was up to me
to stop them and I didn't.
1:12:59
I felt it was up to the Supreme Court
and they did what they could, but...