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Saw another "thin blue line" flag on a local police vehicle. Time for a reminder that the movie that made the phrase famous was about a death row conviction obtained by police and prosecutors who lied to frame an innocent man. 1/10
The prosecutor chose to charge someone who was present at the shooting, but did not have a gun or fire it, because the actual shooter was a juvenile and therefore could not be sentenced to death under Texas law. 2/10
The trial was a farce of justice, with a prosecutor knowingly lying about the evidence, and police backing him up in every way possible because it was a police officer who had been shot. 3/10
And, of course, an appallingly unethical psychiatrist on hand to make sure the jury knew the innocent man was a danger to society and had to be executed. 4/10
The phrase itself was the centerpiece of Dallas prosecutor Douglas Mulder's closing statement to the jury, and has proven to be as durable as any piece of brilliant poetry. 5/10
Whatever you think of the truth of that poetic line, the rest of Mulder's closing argument was a tissue of lies held together by purposefully distorted readings of the available evidence. 6/10
Errol Morris made a movie about the trial, which at the time was one of the highest-grossing documentaries ever. Lots of people saw it, though it was denied an Academy Award because it contained re-enactments and thus was deemed not strictly true. 7/10
The re-enactments were presented to show the different versions of the story as it was presented to the jury, and also to show how unlikely they were. 8/10
Such as the couple who drove by the stopped car just before the shooting and claimed they could confidently identify the driver, despite the distance, speed, and fact that it was night. 9/10
Anyway, people should know that the "thin blue line" phrase was invented as a manipulative appeal to emotion to distract a jury from the despicable lies they were fed. It ruined a man's life and let a killer go free -- for what? 10/10
