Justice In Twelve Angry Men, By Reginald Rose

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.

Initially, Juror 8 stands alone during the first vote. For clarification, he doesn’t cower and change his initial vote when he notices that all the other people in the room are against him. Eight didn’t succumb to peer pressure and made it his duty to ensure everyone else sees what he does. Second, Juror 5 changed his vote from “guilty” to “not guilty” because he realised how much the accused has in common with his own upbringing. For instance, both of them grew up in the slums and were often negatively stereotyped. People tend to agree with others if they find something that they have in common. Lastly, Juror 11 called Juror 7 out for misusing his freedoms as an American citizen and his responsibilities as a Juror of the court. Being that Juror Seven only changed his vote because he had tickets to a play, Juror 11 was enraged, mainly because not everyone has the same opportunities as they do at the moment. When Juror 11 lived in Europe, he never had opportunities like this so he was taking it seriously, especially because the life of someone else was in jeopardy. Quite often literature mirrors real life, as is the case with the recent shooting in Las Vegas when complete strangers risked their own safety or put their own lives on hold to help when others were 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.

Check your intuitions—neither dismiss them, nor trust them blindly. In the play, Twelve Angry Men, the Jurors are always checking their intuitions. The Jurors’ intuitions are going to change whether the accused is guilty or not. The judge says, “If there is a reasonable doubt in your minds as to the guilt of the accused—then you must declare him not guilty.

The 8th Juror was realistic because as everyone else rushed to their decision on the case, he decided to stop and take time out for reasoning. He did not know whether the boy was truly innocent or guilty but voted innocent because he wanted an opportunity to assess the evidence. The expert in Twelve Angry Men was actually the 8th juror because of his courage and knowledge to examine things

First, Juror 8 stood his ground. In the beginning the Foreman called for a vote and eleven men raised their hand for guilty while Juror 8 raised his hand for not guilty. “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.” said Juror 8 for justifying his actions. Later, when the other jurors were trying to convince Juror 8, he was quick with his arguments. To Juror 2 he said, “Nobody has to prove otherwise. The burden of proof is on the prosecution. The defendant doesn’t have to open his mouth. That’s in the constitution. You’ve heard of it.” To Juror 10 he said, “You don’t believe the boy. How come you believe the woman? She’s one of “them” too, isn’t she?” When Juror 6 brought up the motive for the murder, Juror 8 remarked with, “…I

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,

The setting of 12 Angry Men is a jury deliberation room where the jurors are and required to decide the guilt or innocence of an 18 year old that is accused of committing first-degree murder by stabbing his father with a switchblade knife. Witnesses were presented to give evidence of hearing a quarrel; hearing a threat to kill, and have seeing the boy run away. Another witness swore to having seen the boy stabbing his father from a window across from where the murder occurred. Eleven jurors were convinced the boy was guilty and deserved the death penalty. One raised questions he felt had not been asked or had not been pursued by the defense.

For instance, when Juror 4 said to everyone regarding about a baffling conflict, “I don't see any need for arguing like this. I think we ought to be able to behave like gentlemen." (16) This shows how Juror 4 is confident and determined to resolve the case and not play around. He tries very hard to calm many jurors down instead of letting it go and think of other things, this shows that he cares about the case. Moreover, Juror 8 also shows us that he cares about the case because he thinks and tries very hard to back up his claim so that is seems believable. To illustrate, when Juror 8 tries to retort back to a claim he thinks is false, “Nobody has to prove otherwise. The burden of proof is on the prosecution. The defendant doesn't have to open his mouth. That's in the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment. You've heard of it." (18) This quote reveals how he is confident with his knowledge and tries very hard to think of a rebuttal against Juror 2 argument. He thinks that a rebuttal against a false statement is very important, because he doesn’t want Juror 2 to convince other people with his statement. In another example, Juror 8 exhibits how he takes the trial seriously by investigating the case in his own time, “I’m just saying it’s possible ... I got it last night in a little junk shop around the corner from the boy's house. It cost two dollars." (24). In his own time, Juror 8 tries to find a similar knife that has been used in the murder, and successful bought one. This shows how he is willing to sacrifice his own time to find evidence for the case, it shows that he cares about the case and take the trial seriously. By taking the trial seriously, it reveals how both of the jurors is a fair person and wanted to give a fair trial and justice to the

In a crowded jury room in downtown New York, opinions collide as discussion about the innocence of a young boy is decided. The dark and foreboding storm clouds that hang over the heads of the jurors are beginning to lift as time progresses and new facts are presented. One juror is not happy about this stay of execution and is holding fast his opinion of guilty. Juror three, the president of his business, refuses to alter his vote or opinion in any way. Still haunted by his own son, juror three verbally assaults the group with a forceful tone and a taciturn attitude. One of twelve, Reginald Rose created them all from the same pen and ink, and they could all be no more different.

The theme of 12 Angry Men is the idea that true justice is never absolute but is instead logical and fair. For every piece of evidence, the jurors had to examine it and judge whether or not it was valid. This lead to them being unsure whether or not the evidence was reasonable, giving them doubts. For example, a major piece of evidence in the case was that an old man living under the boy’s apartment heard the boy say “I’m going to kill you!” However, after arguing about it for sometime, they realize that with an el train passing by at that time, the old man most likely wouldn’t have been able to hear that.

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

Twelve Angry Men is about a jury who must decide the fate of an 18 year old boy who allegedly killed his father. The jury must determine a verdict of guilty beyond any reasonable doubt and not guilty. A guilty verdict would mean that the accused would receive the death penalty. After a day of deliberation and many votes, they came up with the verdict of not guilty. I believe they achieved their overall goal of coming up with a verdict they were all able to agree with. It seems there were some individual personal short term goals that were not met. One being that the one juror was not able to go to the baseball game. Another was that a juror was not able to take out the anger he had towards his son on the son accused of killing his

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 the drama Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, juror 8 does a good job in persuading the other jurors to listen and reconsider the evidence. He uses his rhetorical appeals to captivate the other jurors attention. He gains an authority towards the other jurors which makes them trust him more. Juror 8 deconstructs the testimony and evidence with his rhetorical appeal to make the other jurors consider the innocence of the defendant.