Negligence: Case Study

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 12 Angry Men, the jurors are set in a hot jury room while they are trying to determine the verdict of a young man who is accused of committing a murder. The jurors all explain why they think the accused is guilty or not guilty. Throughout the movie they are debating back and forth and the reader begins to realize that even though the jurors should try to not let bias cloud their judgement, the majority of the jurors are blinded by bias. The viewer can also see that the jurors have their own distinguishable personalities. Their personalities intertwine with each other to demonstrate how the jury system is flawed, but that is what makes it work.

(Rose 72). Juror Eight has already analyzed Juror Three’s defensive behavior and

Keeping this in mind, we need to come to an understanding that being in a jury carries a lot of weight because a decision we make will bring forth life changing consequences. The prosecutors in this case believe that Katherine was beaten by Michael in an act of malice. In an effort to support their case, they have presented evidence that

Between this time and November 3rd 1994 the jury of 12 was selected out of a venire of 304 perspective jurors. All 304 perspective juror’s had a seventy five page questionnaire to complete to determine eligibility for the trial. Both the prosecuting and defending teams set out to present their case. The trial lasted 134 days in 1995 and is renowned for the media coverage from inside

Juror characteristics that would be beneficial to the defendant would be to have someone on the jury who is suffering from a mental disorder or have a loved one who is controlling it with medications. Someone who works in the field of mental illness would also be a plus for the defense. When you have someone, who works with people with mental disorders they tend to have a better understanding of what type of person or illness they are dealing with. The defense will be looking for people who can be unprejudiced about the law, and will not believe that the law always makes the right decision (Hullinger April 1, 2015).

The potential risk of a trial by jury is the opportunity for bias through the jury. While there is a selection process to remove the error of bias for the case, it still can happen. The jurors may be influenced by various things throughout the case that may result in their emotions and hearts being the decision maker versus their minds. Additionally, the jurors may not have prior experience or exposure to the type of information that is presented before them in court. This can become a limitation for the juror as they attempt to provide a proper response.

There is no Juror that displays more prejudice than that of Juror 3 as is he the most out spoken and also the last to change his vote. He has no problem harrying the other jurors when they think differently from him. As soon as the jurors moved to the deliberation room, juror 3 begins thrown his influence in the weakest member of the jury who is juror 2 “Did [jurors] ever hear… So much talk about nothing.” despite of he had suggest to start voting first because the total idea in his mind that the ‘kid is guilty’. Throughout the play, juror three interrupts others in mid-sentence and attacks their opinions, however, his attempts to break the jurors and evidence fail when in the end the votes are

There are twelve jurors who act very differently from one another. For example, juror #7 is very stuck up and inconsiderate of other jurors’ opinions on the case. “What's there to talk about? Eleven of us think he's guilty. No one had to think about it twice except you.” Juror #7 decided to be rude from the start and didn’t ask juror #8 why he voted non-guilty, he went right into attacking

The functions of jury consultants are to assist the lawyers in the jurors selection process. Due to the fact that preemptory challenges are limited, the jury consultants help discover bias of potential jurors. In addition, they also provide the necessary criteria

It could be argued that the upbringings that jurors bring are an advantage in the deliberation room when the reader experiences jurors such as #5, who grew up in a similar situation as the defendant. His explanation of how there was no way the boy would have held the knife, stabbing in a downward motion, because he was too smart to know that isn't the correct movement is arguably the reason many jurors switch their verdict. But Juror #5 also brings a lot of emotion to the deliberation room and takes pity on the defendant. People’s paradigms can’t play a role when it comes to a potentially innocent man on

This article examines the jury system and the need to make changes. It explains briefly, what a jury is and how it works. I propose that all jurors should be made to pass an intelligence test prior to trial. Then, the opinions of the opposition are addressed, followed by some reasons why jurors should not have their intelligence tested. Finally, I explore the many reasons why my proposal should be put into action.

The first argument presented by juror 8 is a “proposition of value” argument. Before examining the factual evidence in-depth, he examines the defendant’s upbringing. He believes that the defendant had been “kicked around his whole life” and because of this, the jurors “owe him a few words.” This argument is a presentation of the morality of their decision. The evidence presented is that the defendant had a hard life, the connective presented is that those with an upbringing similar to the defendants have an unfair disadvantage, and the conclusion is that they must discuss the case further before reaching a conclusion. This causes a reaction of disapproval from other jurors, such as juror 10, who says “we don’t owe [the defendant] a thing.” Juror 8’s first argument also presents a fallacy of a hasty

It looks like they do not understand how to carry out their duties. For example, The Jury # 1 pronounced himself as a leader ,but does not lead a group, very passive one, on the opposite side, the Jury # 3 is very aggressive, and cannot obstruct the drama of his own life, the conflict with his own son from the case of a stranger. His emotions overflowed his awareness and take him away from reasonable solutions. Jury # 7 appears as a careless, selfish person interested only in a coming up baseball game. Almost all of them demonstrated a personal prejudice, as a Jury # 10, who truly believes, that some people just “born to be criminals”. It takes a lot of courtesy to Jury #8 to stand for the fair justice and speak up his mind against 11 other people, who truly believe the boy is guilty. He raised his voice for fair justice, he said “it is possible”, possible to make mistakes, and that before to send a person to the electric chair, jurors should be prudent, conscious and thoughtful. Being focused on reasonable doubt, he convicted other juries to question “the truth of evidence”. Now, working as a team, and recreating the chain of events, juries see the situation differently. One by one they realized, that context of the story could be different. The Juror’s # 5, who has a “ slam background “ helps to challenge the angle of the knife wound, and convicted Jury # 9 to change his

To predict a juror’s attitude, the juror’s age is multiplied by w, the Gender score by x, the Education score by y, and the Occupation score by z. These results are then added together. This gives the final sum, CV, which is the predicted attitude for that juror. Since the distribution of attitudes in the population is known, the equation enables one to decide whether a given juror should be challenged off the jury by seeing where his or her score falls in that distribution. The equation can be used to compile the predicted attitude index for each juror under consideration, or alternatively, the data can be used to construct profiles of what relatively positive and negative jurors look like (Berry,