The Thin Blue Line Summary

Anthony Maddalon, “Movie Response TBL”, 2/13/17, Alicia Hammond [section 01D]

The movie The Thin Blue Line by Errol Morris inadvertently touches on the issues of memory and how memory can be linked to bias. One being the different schemas for crime scenes, criminals, kids, out of towners, and townspeople. From these schemas and spreading activation, bias can be shown in the depictive image formed.

The documentary gathered witness statements and interviews to show re-enactments throughout the film. These re-enactments changed based on what the interviewee could remember from the case. These different re-enactments showed the viewer not just verbally, but visually that the stories conflicted or were open to interpretation. Viewers being able to better conceptualize the inconsistencies in the case caused an impact on their opinions. In this way Errol Morris creates a higher definition depictive image for the visual working memory than what was being built from the propositional code viewers had of the case. With more information on the case, viewers with prior memories or knowledge of the case had a reason to question if justice was met.

The amount of certainty needed in a memory before acting on it was very different depending on the group or individual.

For example the police wanted vengeance and to close the case as quick as possible so any lead they could get they ran with, without checking credibility. For the witnesses they can be coached or primed into remember something in a specific way. At least one of the witnesses’ certainty in their memory was likely decided by money. The defense lawyer’s, Edith James, was aware that her memory was fallible and was less likely to state something as fact. Randall Adams’ memories were a retelling of what he remembers without trying to guess the other facts of the case. David Harris memories of the case in the interviews talks of a kid that got in over his

head.
From the memories we can see bias and assumption without even contrasting the memories of different groups. Randall Adams during the incident seemed to be operating under an assumption of someone helping him out when he ran out of gas couldn’t be a bad person. During Adams recall of the event despite knowing he was innocent and that Harris wasn’t a good person that recollection of running out of gas and meeting Harris was not twisted. Adam’s bias and prejudices in his recollection of event is likely with the police force and they way they acted. The prejudice against a suspect is shown strongly from Gus Rose’s and Jackie Johnson’s memory of trying to get Adam’s to sign a confession.. Adams says “He pulled his service revolver on me. We looked at each other for...to me it seemed hours. I do not like looking down the barrel of a pistol.”. While Gus the police who was interrogating Adams recalls that interaction as “I had what I call a casual, friendly conversation with him to start with, to try to size him up, to see what he liked and what he didn't like.”. These are two very different recollections. Gus’s recall of the event describes a friendly questioning with a cold remorse Randall Adams, who they believed was the killer with little evidence.
The police force definitely had the clearest prejudices and bias. Be it Adams and treating him as guilty right from the start. The female police officer, Turko, who was questioned so many times that her memory of the event was all over the place. During the retelling the police officers both make excuses for and belittle Turko for her mistakes. Which likely stem from Turko being female and being one of the first female police officers so that comes with a set of prejudices. The officers also recall Harris as a kid with a troubled past, but not really as a suspect. The police got the evidence they need against Adams from Harris so bias from that and from being a local kid helped the memories of Harris from the police perspective look that way.
Besides the biases of the viewers and the different groups in the documentary, Errol Morris is potentially biased. Not biased in his memory of the case, but rather in the documentary editing. The order in which parts of the story are told can bias viewers to see someone as more or less guilty. Morris is likely biased at least a little as everyone has assumptions and preconceived notions of events. The important thing is being aware that there is bias and that you yourself are also biased, which extended into your memories.