12 Angry Men Essay

Reginald Rose’s ‘Twelve Angry Men’ is a play which displays the twelve individual jurors’ characteristics through the deliberation of a first degree murder case. Out of the twelve jurors, the 8th Juror shows an outstanding heroism exists in his individual bravery and truthfulness. At the start, the 8th Juror stands alone with his opposing view of the case to the other eleven jurors. Furthermore, he is depicted as a juror who definitely understands the jury system and defends it from the jurors who do not know it fully. At the end, he eventually successes to persuade the eleven other jurors and achieves a unanimous verdict, showing his

A boy may die,” and changes his vote to “not guilty” which is another instance where the boy gets a fair trial. The 12th and 7th juror find it difficult to decide on which way to vote and therefore vote “not guilty” so that the boy is not “sent off to die.” The 12th juror’s lack of a defined and consistent point of view reflects America’s post war materialism. The 4th juror believed that the defendant was guilty for most of the play but then was the 2nd last juror to change his vote and admitted that he had a “reasonable doubt.” Although the audience never finds out whether the defendant was “guilty” or “not guilty” the jurors give the “kid from the slums” an honest trial.

Inside a room where life or death decisions are made, twelve men sit with wandering thoughts. The made up minds of some jurors are to send a boy to his death without a second thought, but one other juror may change that. Inside of the play Twelve Angry Men written by Reginald Rose, Juror 8 has the persuasive evidence to change the minds of his fellow Jurors and save a boy from his execution. The other Juror’s seem like they won’t budge with their mind set on the decision of guilty, but after Juror 8 proves his thoughts on the decision of innocent, he may just be able to save a young life.

The film uses juror three to demonstrate how past experiences can influence ones prejudice in decision making. Juror 3, who has a prejudice against the accused, and thinks the kid is under-privileged and doesn’t deserve a second chance, which is reason enough for him to conclude the accused is guilty. As the discussion continues as to the verdict of the trial, juror three grows frustrated and angrily refutes, “What is this? Love your under- privileged bother week or something? (12 Angry Men). Due to his past experiences with young men, he is ready to sentence the defendant to death with weak circumstantial evidence, grows angry as the other jurors question what he refers to as “facts” and claims “You can’t refute facts” (12 Angry Men) As all the Jurors except juror twelve get more and more frustrated by the slowed process, juror three begins to see through his prejudice, and disperses the other jurors interruptions by saying “Be quiet, we’ll all get a turn”(12 Angry Men). It finally becomes clear, he sees similarities with his son he had a falling out with several years ago, and puts this prejudice aside and excepts that the evidence is too circumstantial to convict a kid for murder, and sentence him to death.

The last major fact that influences the juries agreement that the accused is not guilty are doubts of another witness’s testimony; the lady across the street who supposedly saw the accused young man stab his father. The jurors started talking about needing glasses to read the clock when Juror 8 realizes that the lady used very strong glasses and it is not possible that she could have had time to put them on and see the young man clearly stab his father. Juror 8 says,

The jurors are transformed by the process of deliberating. Eleven men voted guilty because of their prejudices, fears, laziness and insecurities, but they are eventually persuaded by reason to give up these limiting beliefs, to see the potential in the facts, and to find justice. The critical turning points in the jury votes occur, not when there is passion and anger, but when there is reasoned discussion, as the rational Juror 8 triumphs over the prejudices of his fellow jurors. The facts of the case do not change, but the jurors come to see the facts differently, and change by the process they go through. Despite the hostility and tension created in this process, the twelve men end up reconciled, and justice is done.

The film “12 Angry Men” gives the audience insight as to how jury deliberations work. The film follows 12 jurors throughout the process of finding the defendant’s sentencing. The jury is overseeing a case surrounding a young boy who is charged with the murder of his father. It was interesting to see the process of this paired with the way each character’s vote had an effect on each of the other juror’s decisions. The film “12 Angry Men” portrays a realistic fluctuation of stances in a room of jurors as a whole and individually based upon the prior experiences and ethics of each juror.

Each man brought their own experiences and attitudes to the case and thus, this complicated the process for Davis in all of the men seeing eye-to-eye. Some men believed that the boy was guilty simply because the jury said so. Others believed that the boy was guilty because all poor people who lived in the slums were no good and lastly, the most stubborn juror wanted to convict the boy because of personal issues he had with his son. Nevertheless, through logical arguments and an impressively calm temperament, he was able to open the eyes of all of the

The 3rd juror from the drama “Twelve Angry Men” is another character that play an important role in the drama. Throughout the drama he argues hi point that the boy is guilty. To him it's clear that the boy is guilty because in a democracy you must decide based on the evidence given. In the drama “Twelve Angry Men” page 103 paragraph 82 - 83 it states “ I really think this is one of those open and shut things.” The 3rd juror is sharing his opinion that he thinks the boy is guilty based on the evidence he heard. The 3rd juror treats the accused a if he was a adult because of the crime he committed. He believes that the accused should be trialed as an adult and he receive the full punishment. In the drama “Twelve Angry Men” page 102 paragraph 75 - 76 it states “ I mean, lets be reasonable. You sat in court and heard the same things we did. The man’s a dangerous killer. You could see it.” The 3rd juror is stating that in

In 12 Angry Men, Juror #8 tries to convince the other jurors that the defendant of the case, an 18 year old boy accused of stabbing his father to death, is not guilty based on a reasonable doubt. Throughout the film Juror #8 goes over the facts and details of the case to point out the flaws in the evidence in order to prove there is, in fact, a reasonable doubt. The film depicts the struggles of the underdog and going against the majority in order to stand up for what is right. In one scene, the piece of evidence being put into question is a testimony from an elderly man who lived below the boy and his father and claimed he heard the murder happen and saw the boy leave the apartment after it happened. It is being put into question whether the elderly man who walked with a limp could make it to his doorway in order to witness the boy running away from the crime in fifteen seconds.

It must be very disappointing to take blame for something you did not do. In the play " Twelve Angry Men " by Reginald Rose, act one, most of the jurors said their statements without enough evidence and almost sentenced the kid guilty. Later on, the jurors change their minds because of the evidence presented to them. Therefore, the author shows you should not go along with what you hear without proof.

The movie 12 Angry Men takes place in a room of 12 jurors as they discuss the guilt of a boy charged with the murder of his father. The facts of the case have been laid out, and each juror already has decided how they feel. Initially the vote was 11-1 guilty. The one vote for not guilty came from Juror Number Eight, Mr. Davis, played by Henry Fonda. Mr. Davis voted not guilty because he had reasonable doubt about evidence presented by the prosecution. As Mr. Davis explains his reasoning behind his reasonable doubt, the core values of himself and other jurors are displayed. As the movie continues, the vote slowly turns from 11-1 guilty to 12-0 not guilty. Mr. Davis brings up point after point that force his fellow jurors to analyze themselves and in the end, change the way they vote. Ultimately, the 1957 film 12 Angry Men forces the audience to look inward after watching the juror’s words, manners, and priorities change throughout the jury session.

Although a lot of evidence was really convincing, he tried to prove it unconvincing and use sarcasm to convince other jurors otherwise. One example of #7 using sarcasm would be this quote: "Why don't we have them run the trial over..." I think this quote clearly shows that juror #7 is trying to convince other jurors, that court's evidence proves the young man is guilty without reasonable doubt. Also to break #8's spirit he used name calling, another kind of peer pressure. I believe this is a very good example: "The boy is guilty pal, like the nose on your face." The third and last juror I picked was #8, he was not using sarcasm, nor was he muscle flexing, he was using reasonable argument, which helped him convince all the jurors that the young man was innocent. He did not try to convince anybody by screaming at him, on the contrary he tried to go over all the evidence, and he was using intelligent thinking, like trying to calculate exact times, and figure out the correct position of the switch-blade in the chest of the father. He was also trying to recreate a situation to see if indeed one of the witnesses on the stand was lying.

In the movie there was an allegation that a young boy had killed his father. The neighbor claimed to have woken up in the middle of the night, looked through the windows of a passing el train just in time to see the boy stabbing his father. Another neighbor stated that he heard the son scream “I’ll kill you”, heard the father’s body hit the floor, and made it to his front door just in time to see the boy running away from the scene. The neighbors “saw” and “heard” the incident, so to most of the jurors, being the realist that they are, they had no choice to believe the murder to be true. Davis, Juror eight, had an entirely different way of thinking.

During the film, logic was required on everyone’s part. They were deciding on an eighteen-year-old kid’s life! It was not a decision to be made quickly. Mr. Davis realizes this and is the only one to vote ‘not guilty’ when taking the first vote (Lumet). Logic came into play because Mr. Davis thought logically about all of the evidence presented and because of this he felt that there was a reasonable doubt and could therefore, not sentence the young man. Throughout the rest of the film, we see more of the men thinking logically, for example, when Juror Nine realizes that the woman who claims she witnessed the murder, wore glasses and would not have been able to clearly see the boy if she claimed to be laying in bed trying to fall asleep. Another example is when juror number five, who grew up in the same area of town that the defense did, shows the proper way of using a switchblade knife, making a logical