Randall Dale Adams

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Wednesday, June 29th, 2011, 2:47 pm
Kerry says:
My name is Kerry Max Cook. Texas media is no stranger to my Kafkaesque legal ordeal with unscrupulous police and prosecutors in a small Texas town called Tyler. However, I am not here to talk about myself and what it took for me to survive death row as an innocent person. I am here to talk about a former resident of death row and my friend, Randall Dale Adams. It was the summer of 1978 when I met a young Randall Dale Adams on cellblock J-21 -- the original death row "wing" where those exiled under a sentence of death were assigned "Ad. Seg," or Administrative Segregation, as prison officials call it. Death row was a lot of things, but most of all, it was a wild and crazy place, a hate-factory and an austere human repository warehousing every conceivable mental and emotional disorder known to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). As an example, Randall and I would be talking and, without warning, violence erupted from somewhere around us. Once, I witnessed a quick scuffle and then I heard the dull thud of a heavy body falling solidly to the concrete floor, met by a guard’s shrill screams, “FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!” The body of death row inmate Edward King lay prostrate gasping his last breath with a chicken bone protruding from his chest. By the time the nurses arrived, Edward King needed only the stale, dirty State-issued dingy sheet to wrap and remove him to await the Walker County coroner’s office. Randall Dale Adams was clearly not one of that motley crew, despite having come, at one time, less than 72 hours away from execution. He didn’t suffer from an anti-social, schizophrenic personality disorder, indigenous to a diseased and dangerous mind gone AWOL. Randall Dale Adams was no killer. Simply put, Randall Dale Adams was a square, an innocent American citizen who fell victim to the antics of a trouble teenager named David Ray Harris. Randall, through a twist of fate, also got caught in the cross hairs of an overzealous Texas prosecutor. Randall was a naive, quiet and unassuming kind man who cared about others. Had he never agreed to give David Harris a ride that fateful night, would not have met Randall on Texas death row two years later and officer Robert W. Wood would still be alive. The last time I saw Randall was when we met in Austin and testified before the 77th Texas Legislature. Randall’s ordeal with Texas officials and the fight to clear his name and be recognized was so grueling and intense; he left public life and moved back to his hometown of Columbus, Ohio where he died last October. In representing Randall in this moment of grief, I think if Randall could have left you with something, it would be this: “We rightfully legislate laws to honor victims of unspeakable crimes. You didn’t recognize me in life, and maybe you won’t recognize me in death, but I still believe in you, even though your politics sometimes prevents you from believing in me. You don’t have to remember me, but please, for the sake of those who follow after me, please remember my story….”