preview

12 Angry Men Essay

Decent Essays

Reginald Rose’s play ‘12 Angry Men’ entirely takes place in a small New York City jury room where 12 male jurors have convened to decide the verdict in a homicide case. The verdict of this case will decide if a young boy will be charged with murdering his father, with a switchblade knife, on the first degree. The film shows us nothing of the trial itself except for the judge 's perfunctory, almost bored, charge to the jury where he reminds them that they must base their unanimous decision of “guilty” or “not guilty” on whether or not there is “reasonable doubt” in their minds as to the guilt of the accused. His tone of voice indicates the verdict is a foregone conclusion. We hear neither prosecutor nor defense attorney, and learn of the …show more content…

After all, they 're about to send an eighteen year-old kid to the electric chair, and Juror #8 doesn 't want to do that without having a conversation first. He brings up certain details of the case that have been bothering him, but the other jurors want him to stop stalling so they can get on with the Guilty verdict. Among the main sources of evidence that the jurors have found compelling include the testimony of two key witnesses. The first was the testimony of the tenant living below the apartment where the defendant’s father had been killed, during which he stated that he heard the defendant say that he would kill the father and that he saw him soon afterwards fleeing the scene of the crime. A juror counters the evidence by stating that the boy claimed he had been at the movies while his father was murdered, but couldn’t remember the name of the movies or who was in them. The second key witness was a woman, who was living across the street, testified that she saw the boy kill his father through the windows of a passing elevated train. Aside from the considerations mentioned, the jurors also took it to be significant that the defendant had, that night, had an argument with his father, which resulted in the boy’s father hitting him twice, and that the boy has an extensive list of prior offenses, including trying to slash another teenager with a knife. Finally, the murder weapon recovered from the scene of

Get Access