The 12 Angry Men & the Court System Movies will never be only movies. A good movie will always draw us into our everyday life. We not only can entertain ourselves, but also become inspired from a good movie and receive our own understanding from it. Movies are a good way to live. The movie 12 Angry Men?s background is about a young man who is charged with murdering his own father. Therefore, 12 men are designated to be the jurors on the young man?s trail. Most of the jurors want to get rid of this case, the reason they give, is because the young man is not white, except one guy raised objections --- the Juror 8. The entire movie revolves around the process of the 12 jurors deciding whether the young man is guilty or not. At the end of the story, …show more content…
The young man is not guilty. After reading the novel and watching the movie, the readers wonder ?Is the legal system really fair??;?Is there any benefits and limitations exist of having the jury system??; ?Does the movie has any connections to the Civil Right Movement?? The legal system has more weaknesses than strengths; Jury system has more benefits than limitations; Movie has some aspects connect to the Civil Right Movement. Everything has its strengths and weakness, so is the legal system really fair? The answer is yes. The legal system harms people more than it benefits people. The legal system helps people a lot. As the 12 Angry Men shows us, the legal system gives the young man a chance, sets up a fair trial for him and provides him a good lawyer. Those are the benefits that the legal system gives people. But, there are still weaknesses that we can not ignore. In the 12 Angry Men,
According to Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose shows that, sometimes justice needs someone to fight to be fair. To some people justices seems unfair because they never new how justices taste. We don’t have to let our selfless believe is or is not by the background of someone else lives because we don’t know if they have changed. Knowing that you have the life of somebody else and that you must judged whether is or is not guilty is not easy to decide. On the argument juror number 8 is the one the fight to see justice on the case without taking caring about the facts that they so far have.
Today, in the United States, most citizens are able to appreciate the fair, balanced legal system that is in place. The country suffered many failures before establishing the United States Constitution, and later the Bill of Rights, which became the foundation of the country’s legal system and protection of the citizens’ rights (American Sentinel University). Citizens may take their right to trial or their right to due process for granted, without realizing how life was before these rights were recognized and established. Until the Constitution in 1787, the justice system was not permanent and not quite clear, causing unfair and unjust treatment. Of course, no system can be perfect, but it is possible to discover options that suit the wants
In the play “Twelve Angry men”, the story line presents a variety of perspectives and opinions between twelve very different men. Some are more likely to be pointed out as prejudice, and others are more focused on reaching fair justice. Clearly, it is quite difficult for different people to vote ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’ in unity when coming to a fair decision. In all of the twelve jurors, I have chosen Juror 3 and Juror 8 for contrast and comparison. I believe that Juror number 3 is a very opinionated man, with more differences than similarities comparing with Juror number 8.
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.
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.
It is the juror's responsibility to prove the boy guilty or not. Many of these jurors applied their biases to the way the boy grew up and was treated throughout his life. They have created false accusations that are not necessarily accurate. They argue that teenagers his age have no sense of morality or respect for their elders. Which could be a justifiable reasoning for the murder of his own father. Juror Three appears to be prejudiced towards the boy due to the fact that his own son resented him and moved out. It is not uncommon to develop an explicit bias after generalizing impressions from a personal experience and applying that to all groups of that kind such as age, religion, etc. As Juror Eight votes not guilty during a vote, the third juror becomes infuriated and disagrees while ranting about how the defendant is completely guilty due to evidence. Two different categories came into play as Juror Three expressed his feelings about his own son relating to the boy on
One may think of behavior as something that is something fairly straightforward with a singular cause, for example, the thought of a dog wagging a tail due to it receiving a treat. Even though this belief is held by many people, it is a common misconception. Behavior in and of itself is actually determined by multiple different facets. This is shown in the movie 12 Angry Men that portrays a variety of psychological phenomenon to highlight this.
In the United States, we let the people decide – not who the president will be, though. We let everyday people decide whether or not someone is guilty of a crime. The jury system has been around for ages (dating back hundreds of years in England) and probably will be for a long time. But is the system still working? Is it worth it? Should we continue to use juries to decide cases? The jury system shouldn’t remain an option because jurors tend to be incompetent, it’s not really worth the effort, and jurors aren’t professionally educated to decide on these cases.
It was interesting to see the large differences in each juror’s lives. Every jury is eclectic because it is made up of very different people with very different family lives. For example, Juror #3 seems to be a well educated and well off man as he was wearing suspenders and a dress shirt. However, Juror #7 was a young man who seemed fairly uneducated and fairly poor because he dressed in a sweatsuit and used improper language. It was very interesting to see these different personalities clash. In the beginning when the men are all on the same page that the defendant is guilty except one, the men generally more relaxed (except for Juror #3).However, as more of the men start to explain their reasonings for seeing reasonable doubt, tension is prevalent in the room. The men who vote guilty are rallying up against the people who voted not guilty. The feeling of the room switches again as most jurors decide the defendant is guilty. That being said, Juror #3 creates a lot of tension in the room throughout the film due to the the fact that he yells at anyone who disagrees with him because he is unwilling to hear their opinions. For example, while one man is explaining why he thinks there is reasonable doubt, juror #3 decides to start a game of tic tac toe. This is very interesting because he is ready to send the defendant to his deathbed
In chapter 4, the textbook discusses the Criminal justice system and how the system works. The criminal justice system is a system setup to punish those accused of criminal offenses. Crimes such as murder, rape, robbery or crimes that are considered felonies. Many people are found guilty of their crimes and others are found innocent. People find this a good system to properly punish those who have committed offenses. I disagree that the system is a good system that helps people. The reason for me disagreeing is that the system is not perfect. There have been cases where the jury has come to a verdict that was wrong. Cases where the jury wrongly incarcerated somebody or cases where the jury acquitted somebody when they were guilty. A system
The classic 1957 movie 12 Angry Men delves in to a panel of twelve jurors who are deciding the life or death fate of an eighteen year old italian boy accused of stabbing his father to death. The twelve men selected as jurors are a diverse group, each coming to the table with their own socioeconomic backgrounds, personal experiences, prejudice’s, and all of this plays a role in the jurors attitudes and/or misconceptions of the accused young man. How each of the jurors, all but Juror Eight played by Henry Fonda, experiences and personalities impact their original vote of guilty is clear at the beginning of the movie with the first vote. However, from the start, Juror Eight displays confidence, and demonstrates leadership abilities utilizing
Prejudice in the movie "Twelve Angry Men" is everywhere and it tailors how these jurors decide whether a boy is guilty and not guilty. An example of prejudice in this movie is juror 10. Juror 10 is a racist: he believes that people who grew up in the poor sections of the cities are trash and violent people. He also believes that people like the boy on trial need to die because "he has the genes of violence and he can not reproduce. "
Juror 8 is significant to the play Twelve Angry Men because of the justice he brings to the case. Without this character there would be significantly less conflict between characters and the extra evidence would not have been reviewed. Juror 8 examines the evidence in greater detail and believes that everyone deserves a fair trial, regardless of their background or race. “ I had a peculiar feeling about the trial… the defence counsel never really conducted a thorough cross examination, too many questions were left unasked”. (Juror 8) It becomes obvious at this point in the play, that Juror 8 is above prejudice and will stay true to what he believes and is willing to stand alone. Consequently, the other jurors learn that they too can overcome
Issue: The movie “12 angry men” focuses on a 12 men jury who are appointed to discuss on a murder trial of an 18 year old teenager. The case appears to be a clear open and shut case. The decision was clear but arguing nature of juror no 8
In 12 Angry Men, jurors determined if a young, poor Puerto Rican man murdered his father. Initially, eleven of the men determined that the defendant was guilty of murder; however, one juror held that the defendant was innocent, and he believed the man deserved a chance at being proven innocent. After intense debate, the jury found the defendant not guilty. Even though this movie shows evidence of prejudice, groupthink, conformity, cognitive heuristics, the catalyst of change and minority influence benefitted the jury in making a unanimous, educated decision about the fate of the young man.