The movie Twelve Angry Men begins with an eighteen year old boy from the ghetto who is on trial for the murder of his abusive father.
A jury of twelve men is locked in the deliberation room to decide the fate of the young boy. All evidence is against the boy and a guilty verdict would send him to die in the electric chair. The judge informs the jurors that they are faced with a grave decision and that the court would not entertain any acts of mercy for the boy if found guilty.
Even before the deliberation talks begin it is apparent most of the men are certain the boy is guilty. However, when the initial poll is taken Juror #8 (Henry Fonda) registers a shocking “not guilty” vote; Immediately the room is in an uproar. The rest of the jury resents the inconvenience of his decision. After questioning his sanity they hastily decide to humor the juror #8 (Henry Fonda) by agreeing to discuss the trial for one hour. Eventually, as the talks proceed juror #8 slowly undermines their confidence by saying that the murder weapon is widely available to anyone, and that the testimony of the key witness is suspect. Gradually they are won over by his arguments and even the most narrow minded of his fellow jurors hesitantly agrees with him. Their verdict is now a solid not guilty.
Arriving at an unanimous not guilty verdict does not come easily. The jury encounters many difficulties in learning to communicate and deal with each other. What seems to be a decisive guilty verdict as
Over the last 60 year laws have significantly changed around the world. In 1957 New York’s penalty for 1st degree murder was the death sentence. In order for an accused to be convicted 12 jurors must come to a unanimous consensus of a guilty verdict. The film 12 Angry Men directed by Sidney Lumet and produced by Henry Fonda and Reginald Rose is about 12 jurors who are attempting to come to a unanimous decision involving an 18 year old boy who allegedly stabbed his father to death. Within the first five minutes of their deliberation 11 jurors voted for a guilty verdict; all expect jurors eight who believe that they should spend some time to discuss, before sending an 18 year old boy to die (Lumet, 1957). During the course of 80 minutes
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.
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.
Reginald Rose’s play Twelve Angry Men emphasises the importance of seeing things from more than one perspective. Set in a New York jury room in 1957, Rose highlights how important it is that the jury discuss all of the evidence from the case in detail and from multiple angles. Representative of this notion is the 8th Juror who is willing to acknowledge alternative views or interpretations. From the outset of the play he goes against the crowd voting “not guilty”. He then considers all of the details of the evidence including the old man’s testimony and the boy’s inability to remember the movie he saw. In contrast to this character, are
The jurors are transformed by the process of deliberating. Eleven men voted guilty because of their prejudices, fears, laziness and insecurities, but they are eventually persuaded by reason to give up these limiting beliefs, to see the potential in the facts, and to find justice. The critical turning points in the jury votes occur, not when there is passion and anger, but when there is reasoned discussion, as the rational Juror 8 triumphs over the prejudices of his fellow jurors. The facts of the case do not change, but the jurors come to see the facts differently, and change by the process they go through. Despite the hostility and tension created in this process, the twelve men end up reconciled, and justice is done.
In this novel, twelve jurors are designated to choose the verdict of a case. A sixteen-year-old boy is accused of murdering his father. If the jurors’ verdict is guilty, then the boy will receive a death sentence. The chosen jurors are locked in a room to decide the verdict, guilty or innocent. At the beginning, only one juror chose to vote not guilty, for the sake of reasonable doubt. The juror made thought out points and persuasively changed all other other jurors minds. By the end, all jurors chose to vote not guilty, except one. This particular juror voted guilty because he compared the defendant to his own son, whom he had problems with. This prejudice blocked his mind, making him confuse facts with his own judgment.
From there the viewers see that the 12 Jurors retire to a private room where they briefly become acquainted before the deliberation begins. It is clear to the viewers that even before deliberation begins that there are clear biases among the Jurors. The Jurors number off and give their verdicts, and almost right off the bat all the Jurors, aside from one (Juror #8), vote guilty – and they also make it clear that they plan to deliver said verdict without forethought, on Henry Fonda (Juror #8) is the opposing vote of not guilty. His vote of not guilty
Also during this storming process, Juror #8 was aware of all the opposition he was facing with his not guilty vote, and realized he needed to take the role of taking charge in opening up dialog to discuss the case. In this power struggle, he influenced some of the other Jury members by bargaining. Bargaining is a tool used to offer an exchange. He used this tool to convince others to discuss the case by giving them a choice. He presented them with a 2nd vote in which he would exclude himself from, and if all remaining voters still believe the boy is guilty of murder, he would conform to the mass vote, end the case and send the boy to the electric chair. But if not, they will take more time to deliberate and open a genuine discussion of the case. The 2nd vote turned Juror #9’s vote from guilty to not guilty, and Juror #8 was successful in his bargaining
Angry! Hostile!” This causes him to not listen to the other jurors opinions and block out any idea of the defendant being innocent. His prejudice is further understood when he says “this kid is guilty. He’s got to burn. We’re letting him slip through our fingers here.” Juror #3 is only able to see the young boy on trial as a symbol of his own son and is therefore unable to look past his own anger towards his son and see the case for what it really is. It is only through the help of juror #8 does juror #3 finally let go of his personal prejudice and sees the truth about the case and changes his vote to not guilty.
Twelve Angry Men is a legal drama, written by Reginald Rose during the heightened period of 1950's McCarthyism. The didactic play presents a cross section, examining 1950's America during a period of immense suspicion and uncertainty. Roses' play reminds us of the importance of responsibility and integrity, emphasising qualities such as courage that aid in preserving justice. The play examines the power of the "lone voice" and places a special emphasis on the serving of justice over the quest for truth through a central plot and strategic framing. The idea of time versus
Juror 8 knows that bargaining power can shift through focusing on common understanding and emotional connection. Power in a negotiation can be derived through knowledge of participants. Initially Henry is quiet and not engaging in the conversation, however, he observes the others’ behavior. He never reveals anything about himself, his background, his motives, and his name stay in the dark until the end of the movie. Henry states that having reasonable doubts made him vote “not guilty”, and the idea of sentencing somebody to death can not be a matter of view minutes. He knows that only with an ally he can continue a discussion. Knowing that the he can not hold up his position alone for a longer time, he decides to gamble for the support. He hopes that he might have appealed to at least one of the jurors that were not really convinced of the guilt of the defendant from the beginning. Recognizing the importance of the life of the accused Juror 9, an older man changes his vote. He engages in Henry’s attempt to change the opinion of the others. He in the end provides the final facts that change
After all, they 're about to send an eighteen year-old kid to the electric chair, and Juror #8 doesn 't want to do that without having a conversation first. He brings up certain details of the case that have been bothering him, but the other jurors want him to stop stalling so they can get on with the Guilty verdict. Among the main sources of evidence that the jurors have found compelling include the testimony of two key witnesses. The first was the testimony of the tenant living below the apartment where the defendant’s father had been killed, during which he stated that he heard the defendant say that he would kill the father and that he saw him soon afterwards fleeing the scene of the crime. A juror counters the evidence by stating that the boy claimed he had been at the movies while his father was murdered, but couldn’t remember the name of the movies or who was in them. The second key witness was a woman, who was living across the street, testified that she saw the boy kill his father through the windows of a passing elevated train. Aside from the considerations mentioned, the jurors also took it to be significant that the defendant had, that night, had an argument with his father, which resulted in the boy’s father hitting him twice, and that the boy has an extensive list of prior offenses, including trying to slash another teenager with a knife. Finally, the murder weapon recovered from the scene of
The murder weapon, the knife was greatly debated in the court. The exceptionality of the knife was making the boy appear to be guilty of committing the hideous crime of murdering his own father. In order to prove this juror 8 managed to purchase a similar type of knife from the boy’s neighbourhood shop showing that it was not that unique. Juror 8 tells the jury that he doesn’t want them to accept his hypothesis but it could be a possibility. Upon seeing the exactly similar knife the other jurors are told about the undependability of the prosecution and their evidence. This incident clearly shows that juror 8 just doesn’t want to prove the boy’s innocence but he wants to put a reasonable doubt about the boy’s guilt in the minds of all the other jurors.
Although this juror is puzzled at first he ends up growing confident in his vote and finds many facts to back him up. In one incident he asks juror number two and juror number four who have glasses if they sleep with their glasses on. They giggle and reply with no they do not sleep with their glasses on. Well he uses this because the lady who “witnessed” the murder wore glasses, and in order for her to have clearly been able to see the murder she would have to have her glasses on while she was in bed; since that is when she witnessed the murder. Little by little the other jurors change their vote from guilty to not guilty. And in the end justice is served and the boy is found not guilty.
Upon the opening discussion, the jurors refer to a primary source of evidence, the murder weapon, which coincidentally was the same model switch knife purchased by the defendant earlier that evening. Due to this evidence, Juror No. 4 jumps to the conclusion, “You know what exactly happened. The boy took the knife