How Does 12 Angry Men Show Prejudice Obscures the Truth? Essay

This excerpt Twelve Angry Men is written by Reginald Rose. Three character traits that I picked to explain how Juror Three acts is prideful, aggressive, and stubborn. I chose prideful because he thinks he knows that the boy killed his dad. I chose aggressive because he says that the kid needs to burn. And I chose stubborn because he’s showing determination not to change his

In Reginald Rose’s play, Twelve Angry Men, Rose’s play makes an argument against the jury system in the United States. This is shown when Juror #12 changes his vote and when Juror #10 talks about his prejudice towards the defendant .

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.

However, it isn't just the jurors' own personal prejudice that affects the way they vote. The prosecution of the boy led the jurors to believe that he was a guilty beyond all doubt. Also, the boy's representation was uninterested and uncaring. ‘I kept putting myself in the boy's place. I would have asked for another lawyer, I think. I mean, if I was on trial for my life I'd want my lawyer to tear the prosecution witnesses to shreds, or at least to try.' [Juror 8, page 14]

In the movie, the jury has to come to a unanimous decision on the boy’s innocence or guilt as stated by the judge in the beginning of the film and that any decision that is not unanimous will result in a hung jury where they will most likely schedule for a retrial. While most of the characters of the jury seem adamant about the eventual result of the kid and how his fate should pan out, juror number 8 decides that he is going to vote for not guilty in order to have a reasonable discussion about the trial instead of immediately sending the defendant to the chair to be executed. This is met by the initial outrage of the group at the thought of someone going against what was the norm of the group, which is very uncommon for someone to do especially in a murder trial where people tend to be very opinionated and set in stone about their ideas. This unflinching and unresolving attitude is shown throughout the movie as juror number 8 slowly and methodically uses both central and peripheral route persuasion to

Twelve Angry Men is a dramatic courtroom play by Reginald Rose published in 1954, which focuses on a jury of twelve men arguing the fate of a young boy, who has been accused of being a murderer. This play cleverly portrays the fact that prejudice exists in society and within every conflict. There are many sources of bigotry in this play, those being mostly character and legal conflict. Many jurors within this play fail to consider all the evidence and take it at face value, this leads to reasonable doubt, which in turn introduces controversy between characters.

The main way that juror eight convinces the rest of the jury of the boys innocence is by bring up the ethics of the other jurors. The reason the juror does not convict the boy when they first vote is because the man believes that the boy’s life at least deserves to be discussed before he is sentenced. Most of the jury has other things that they would rather be doing instead of being in the hot jury room, for example one of the jurors has a ticket for a play that he will not make because of the deliberation. Another juror made his decision of the boy being guilty based off of the part of the city the boy was from, and not based on the evidence provided in the case. Juror eight reminds the rest of the jury that the boy is innocent until proven guilty; therefore, the defense does not have to prove the boy’s innocence,

I want to hear more. The vote in ten to two,” (Rose 25). As you can see, Juror #8 changes his vote to “Not Guilty”, even though he thinks it's wrong, but it’s for the right reason because he is giving his support to Juror #9, who feels strongly about the defendant being innocent even though there was a murder. This shows that Juror #8 cares about justice and is willing to stand up against a crowd to do what he thinks is right. At the end of the deliberation, the vote is 11 for not guilty and 1 for guilty, and Juror #3 stand alone. The 8th and 4th Jurors both make a short and final plea, and the 3rd Juror finally concedes, saying, Alright, Not Guilty,” (Rose 63). Furthermore, Juror #3 strongly believes that the defendant is guilty, but he has to vote not guilty, because it is the right decision even though he believes it is wrong. Juror #3 votes not guilty because even though he thinks the decision is wrong, because it is not easy to send off a boy to die when the vote is 11 guilty and 1 guilty. This shows that Juror #3 is doing something right and voting ¨Not Guilty¨ which was against his wishes. In conclusion, Juror #3 and #8 both make conscious decisions supporting what is right even though, in someway, they thought the defendant was guilty.

He imagines how difficult life would’ve been having been abused from a very young age. One of the jurors is clouded by his own strained relationship with his son. Over the course of action he gets so worked up that he has an emotional outbreak. He goes through deep anger and eventually sadness. He then becomes aware of the misdirected anger and he too eventually changes his vote to not guilty.

Juror eight showed naïve realism when it came to his decision in finding the defendant not guilty. He was the first to disagree with the other jurors when they found the defendant guilty. Juror eight continued to argue his opinion when it came to the defendant and he showed that he knew more about the crime than the others. He goes into more details about the crime such as the train being too loud for the old man to hear the body hit the floor. He then mentions that the old man could not see the boy running out of the apartment because the man was old and walked with a limp. He also gives more details about the knife and how anyone could go out and buy that same knife. Juror eight argues until all the other jurors agree with him and they change their votes to not

Juror 3 was basing his failed relationship with his son on the accused boy. The reason that he had such a bad relationship with his son is because when the boy was young, he ran away from a fight and Juror 3 said: “I’m going to make a man out of you or I’m going to bust you up into little pieces trying”. Later on, when his son was older, they got into a fight and Juror 3 hasn’t seen him since. This experience probably left him the impression that all kids take their loved ones for granted, and that they deserve severe punishments. Juror 3 is not the type to provide the sharpest evidence or information, but he is very determined to prove that the accused really did murder the victim. Juror 8 practically gives nothing away about his real life, probably because he did not want to add his own prejudices to the case. Juror 3 gave both his ill-mannered personality and bigotry away in the play.

First, Let's examine Juror 8’s demeanor. He appears to be a gentle, quiet and an astute man. In the initial jury vote, he is the only juror that votes ‘not guilty’ while the rest votes ‘guilty.’ Thus, he exhibits that he is a man that values justice and is willing to fight for it. His display of dubitatio is recognized when he says, “ I don’t know whether I believe it or not. Maybe I don’t.” (Lumet & Rose, 1957). He is uncertain whether the boy is innocent or guilty but merely seeks the truth. He further states that it is not easy for him to “send a boy off to die without talking about it first” (Lumet & Rose, 1957). While justifying to Juror 7 why he cast a ‘not guilty’ vote, Juror 8 utilizes pathos to sway the jurors. “Look, this boy’s been kicked around all his life. You know, living in a slum, his mother dead since he was nine. That’s not a very good head start,” he says (Lumet & Rose, 1957). Juror 8 points to the boy’s poor upbringing in a bid to persuade the others to reconsider discussing the case before making a hasty judgment. He also uses his moderate touch and amiable expressions to calm Juror 9 from the comments made by Juror 10. Consequently, it is apparent that Juror 8’s attitude in determining facts to the

At last, the 8th Juror triumphs to persuade all of the jurors and accomplishes a verdict of “not guilty”. Throughout the play, he tries hard to gain a reasonable doubt and successes in doing so, resulting in acquittal of the defendant. This undoubtedly reveals the 8th Juror’s fortitude in performing his duty as a jury member. Reginald Rose uses the stage directions to leave the 8th Juror until the very end and help out the 3rd Juror who has been exposed and broken by the 8th Juror’s power in jury deliberations: ‘The 8th Juror puts on his own jacket and brings the 3rd Juror’s jacket to him... The 8th Juror helps him on with his jacket’. Rose’s technique of using this stage direction works effectively to the audience members, giving a strong indication of the 8th Juror’s goodness, adding onto the success of persuading the 3rd Juror. Consequently, the 8th Juror is clarified as a ‘favourer’ to the 3rd Juror.

Juror #8 questions a lot of the evidence presented in court; he uses reasoning to question the motives of the witnesses that are put on stand. Most of the jurors who claim to be making their votes on facts, are not open to listening to Juror #8’s approach to reason and reviewing the so-called facts of the case. Throughout the discussion, emotions arise mostly in anger and frustrations. This plays a positive role in the decision-making, because it opens the door to more questions and self-reflections for the jurors to really think about voting on the life of a young man without their own personal feelings getting in the way. For example, he uses many rhetorical questions which are expressions of doubt such as “You don't believe the boy. How come you believe the women?” By appending to the sentence: “She is one of ‘them’ too, isn't she”, Juror #8 successfully raise the doubt through his question. During the course of the debate within the jury room Juror #8 summarizes the evidence presented and the conclusions drawn by his fellow jurors, by asking questions like, what do we know

He keeps digging deeper until things are talked out and he decides whether or not to go the other way. As shown in Figure 1, Juror 8 is a circle with a blue inside and outside to represent confidence and truth. Juror 8 is also the only man who votes not guilty when they vote the first time. When he is asked why he says: “There were eleven votes for guilty. It’s not so easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.” (12 Angry Men) Throughout the play Juror 8 explains his reasonings and gets other Jurors to vote not guilty also. Juror 9 is the first to switch over: “Thank you.(Pointing at NO. 8) This gentleman chose to stand alone against us, That’s his right. It takes a great deal of courage to stand alone, even if you believe in something very strongly. He left the verdict up to us. He gambled for support, and I gave it to him. I want to hear more. The vote is ten to two.” (12 Angry Men) Juror 8 is the only static character throughout the movie because he is the only one who doesn’t change his