Arguments In 12 Angry Men

The play “Twelve Angry Men” by Reginald Rose is a drama about twelve jurors deciding on whether a nineteen year old boy is guilty of murdering his father. The boy has a lengthy list of criminal changes, three witnesses testifying against him, and a weak alibi. This compels eleven of the twelve jurors to detect him as guilty. However, one juror believes that the others are not deciding fairly and are stereotyping. Juror eight, the one who names the boy not guilty, spends the entirety of the play persuading and arguing with the extremely irritable and opinionated juror three.

Juror 8 had many chances to change his opinion about the boy’s case, and yet he never did. Throughout this whole play, Juror 8 stood his ground and was

He doesn’t believe the boy, yet believes the woman. Showing equality can’t be achieved. Then, there is a lot of information given throughout the trial that links the boy to the murder. However, when the jurors go in for deliberation, Juror Eight starts out and is the only one that says not guilty. He just wants to talk about it a little longer because this is a case that will kill the boy if he is convicted. He continuously takes out evidence and testimony including: the use of the knife; the old man’s testimony; the woman’s testimony; his whereabouts; and that the knife is one-of-a-kind (Rose 23-62). That is just a little bit of what is done. There are a lot of things here that show how there is not equality in the courtroom. The main point is that Juror Eight spent so much time investigating the facts of the case, instead of only listening to the prosecution and the defense. He went out of his way to try and prove the boy not guilty. This shows how he tried to make it two against one for the defense. He was only for getting the boy off instead of looking at both sides of the case. He deliberately went through all of the facts like a defense attorney. He thought that he needed to give the boy more help, effectively giving him two different lawyers looking at two totally different things. This shows how you can’t be equal in a courtroom, because

In Reginald Rose’s 12 Angry Men there is a clear juror whom swayed the others and directly expressed his ideas. He is a “gentle man...who wants justice to be done.” Juror no.8 is the hero as his initial choice to vote not guilty locks in the boy's fate of escaping a life of prison and punishment; not excluding his persuasiveness and ideology of the morality of the other jurors. Juror no.8 single handedly voted against the grain and convinced other jurors of his logical reasons ‘it’s not easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy of to die before talking about it first’. It was heroic of him to stand out against the others and the dramatic conclusion greatly attributed to his significant factor as the vote sway from 11-1 guilty to 12-0 for not guilty. Juror no.8 helped conveyed to the other jurors the boy's innocence. Persuading jurors in a chill mannerism whist jurors 3 and 10 were angry and impatient. Over the case juror no.8 was calm and reviewed the evidence taken from the prosecution and it's flaws. Juror no.8 constantly reviewed the evidence with other jurors presenting logical

The personality of juror # 10 was one of hatefulness and anger. This juror was prejudice against the kid because he was from the slums. Juror # 10 said something in the movie about not being able to trust people who are from the slums. Juror # 10 had several outbursts and had a heinous attitude through most of the movie. Juror # 10 was the one who did most of the talking, when it came to trying to convince Juror # 8 that the kid was guilty. There was another Juror that had a roundabout same type of personality coming into the juror’s room as juror # 10. The juror # 3 was also bitter and obstinate towards the others, specifically when it came down to several of the other jurors changing their opinion of guilty to not guilty. Juror # 3 became hot headed and very loud and obnoxious towards everyone. Both Juror # 10 and juror # 3 were only looking at the eye witness testimony,

Where Juror #3 shouts at the top of his lungs about nothing in particular and just threatens the other jurors, Juror #8 speaks calmly and tries to justify his reasons as much as possible. He doesn’t always find something to prove the evidence wrong, but he shows the other jurors how the witnesses could have been mistaken or how there was a possibility that the boy didn’t commit the crime. For example, Juror #8 says at a point in the film, “Maybe on the surface he looks guilty, but if you look deeper…”. Juror #3, on the other hand, constantly makes comments such as, “It’s these kids. It’s the way they are these

Juror #8 is a calm and reasonable man which makes it easier for him to judge the case fairly and justly without any prejudice. Juror #8 never said he believed the defendant to be innocent he only wanted to take the role of being a juror seriously and talk about the case before a young boy is sent off to die. “I’m not trying to change your mind it’s just that we’re talking about somebody’s life here… we can’t decide in five minutes.” Because he brings no prejudice in the jury room he is able to look at the facts and carefully decide on his judgement. Juror #8 recognizes other peoples prejudice and tries not to convince them that the boy is innocent but to have them let go of that prejudice and decide based on the facts whether they truly believe the defendant is guilty or not. Rose uses both juror

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

Similarly ,In Twelve Angry Men Juror 8 is a smart and moral juror who is willing to stand against all the other jurors for what he thinks is right. He is the main protagonist who believes a boy accused with murdering his father deserves a discussion prior to a guilty verdict. Although all the other jurors initially voted guilty, juror 8 believed that the jurors should not “send a boy off to die without talking about it first”(Juror 8, 12). Throughout the play Juror 8 combats the pressure from the other Jurors to just vote guilty and manages to convince his fellow Jurors one by one that there in fact is “reasonable doubt”(Judge, 6) and convinces them to arrive at a “not guilty”(Juror 3, 72) verdict. Reginald Rose extols Juror 8’s pursuit of justice through his success. Not only did Juror 8 stand by his principles and have the courage to stand against all the other Jurors, he also had the wits to convince his fellow jurors to change their verdict. Through these actions Juror 8 brings justice to the courts of New York city saving the life of a young boy.

Juror #8 was the most steadfast juror, insisting that whether the boy was guilty or not, they owed it to the young man to look at all the evidence and come to an objective conclusion. Juror #8 tasks the other jurors with reconsidering their lines of reasoning consistently throughout the play. Juror #3 was just as determined to oppose every point Juror #8 made, calling his proposals on how the murder may have been committed “fairytales“. 27) and “fantastic stories” (pg. 34). As the story goes on we can see the progression of the jurors' mindsets shift, having been forced to take a more in-depth look into the case by Juror #8 as he insisted “There’s a life at stake here”(pg.18). Arguably, the entire play is centered on enhancing jurors perspectives and consciously avoiding personal bias in a court of law.

According the five Methods for Influencing Other Group Members - use of reason, assertiveness, coalition building, higher values, and bargaining - when Juror Eight said: “we are talking about somebody life here, we can’t just decide within five minutes, suppose we are wrong”, he used the youth human-being life’s important and the danger of a false decision as good reasons to force other jurors in analyzing the facts carefully. He then talks about the boy’s backgrounds for appealing to logic and rational thinking of other jurors. Juror Three was overt prejudice, hostility, and used “assertiveness” to influence the other ten jurors of jury provided an antagonist for juror Eight. Juror eight used “coalition building” method to seek alignment with other group members. He never says that he believes the defendant is innocent but his mantra throughout the movie was “it’s possible!” referring to the reasonable doubt, which he convinced others’ thought. Juror Eight continued to appeal other eleven juror’s higher values by repeatedly reinforcing their moral and judicial obligation to convict only if there was no reasonable doubt. He challenged each juror to look at the facts more thoughtfully. “Bargaining” is offering an instrument exchange. Juror 8 used this method when he said: “I want to call for another vote… If there are 11 votes for guilty, I won’t stand alone… But if anyone votes not guilty, we stay here and talk it out.”

Juror 11 is a refugee from Europe. He is a watchmaker who speaks politely and deeply appreciates his democratic rights and freedoms and has no tolerance for those that don’t. He respects process, and wants others to do what is right. For the most part he is controlled in his emotions and we only really see him get fired up when juror 7 wants to change his vote simply to hurry the process so that he can make the baseball game for which he has tickets. He is disgusted that someone would not take their role seriously especially when a boy’s life is at stake. He pushes hard at the juror and demands that he explain why he changed his vote. He speaks with such conviction that seven

Juror #8 was much more successful with his critical thinking since the beginning of the movie. He was the only one of the jurors that voted not guilty. He expressed that “it’s not easy to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first,” when he is being pressed by the others as to why he did not vote guilty. This is the first step he takes to get the others to talk and think about the case. He uses the idea that “supposing we’re wrong”, when talking about the

Well Juror #3 talked about his own son that we see the true reason for his bias against the boy. During the trial, Juror 3 talks about how he once saw his own son run away from a fight. I remember him saying " I told him (his son) right out," I'm going bust you up into little pieces for trying." When his son was 15 he him on the face. Which clears how that this guy has huge problems with kids not respecting their father. In my understanding each Juror brings their own life problems into that jury room. We can't control our emotions, we all are human and it's normal to express feelings. One juror was hurting badly leading him to act that way. He misses his son and is very disappointed in his son for such high disrespect towards his father.

Another major source of conflict is the other jurors’ disinterested approach to the trial. Almost every juror approaches Juror #8’s insistence on a not guilty vote with avoidance. They care little about the case and do not grasp its gravity,