Thin Blue Lie

The falsely accused in Thin Blue Line, Randall Adams, shares his experience with the judicial system as a disservice to justice: “He don’t give a damn if you’re innocent, he don’t give a damn if you’re guilty…they don’t care.”  “He” in this case refers to the judge, but frequently throughout the film, Adams uses the term “they” to include prosecutors, the jury, and the judge.  I also interpret “they” to mean “the man” or the government/law enforcement in general.  Some form of justice is sought after someone is murdered, but vengeance is an important factor when a police officer is killed in the line of duty: the courts will take severe measures to avenge an officer's death. Pertaining to the jury, one attorney rightfully claimed that it was “their verdict that counted.” This shows the fault in our judicial system and acceptance of the convenient truth versus the inconvenient truth. 

Though Thin Blue Line was created to show the fault in Adams’ case, this story is not new in United States' history.  The convenient truth, in other words, not the truth at all, is used to close cases.  Men, often deemed inferior because of minority and/or lower socioeconomic status, have been prosecuted as scapegoats to ease the minds of victims, victims’ families, and society.  Many desire the situation to be “handled” rather than justice be served. It is important to decipher between partial truth and whole truth: a man may be guilty of drunk driving and using illegal drugs, but that does not indicate guilt of further crimes.  

Herzog grapples with the importance of reality, the Factual, and Truth: “Of course, we can’t disregard the factual; it has normative power. But it can never give us the kind of illumination, the ecstatic flash, from which Truth emerges.” Herzog deciphers between the Factual and Truth; some things may be factually correct, such as hundreds sharing the same last name, yet not necessarily displaying the Truth – because they all identify as Schmidt, that does not mean they are THE Schmidt you are looking for.

Different realities are constructed depending on what evidence is presented; the only people who know the absolute truth are those who were present during the situation.  Even that is difficult to claim as some can convince themselves of a different past or find images and memories blurred in a haze of substances and adrenaline. Thin Blue Line encourages viewers to investigate and challenge assumptions: it shows that the determination to reveal truth can undermine a corrupt system.