Criminal Justice 12 Angry Men

Erica Scott

4/10/13

Assignment 1

Criminal Justice 110

Writing Assignment: An Analysis of 12 Angry Men In the play 12 Angry Men a dynamic jury must make an important decision, they must decide the fate of a 19 year old defendant. The teen is on trial for allegedly murdering his father. After hearing the trial in its entirety, the jury retires to a sweltering room to deliberate. Initially a vote was casted and hastily, all of the jurors with the exception of one voted “guilty.” It then it became that jurors who voted “not guilty” to convince the others or comply with their guilty verdict. After hours of deliberation the jury was able to successfully come to a unanimous “not guilty” verdict. In this case several different kinds of evidence

He said it sounded like a fight. Then he heard the kid say to his father, "I'm gonna kill you!” Witness testimony is not always reliable because the human brain has the uncanny ability to fill in gaps of things it does not remember or does not particularly know. Perhaps the old man unknowingly filled in the blanks with some of that information. Further, the teen and his father had a considerably rocky relationship; the boy often reported being abused by his father thus, it was not uncommon to hear a lot of noise from their apartment. The old man also testified that he had heard a body fall to the floor then reports seeing the boy run down the stairs. The jurors reenacted the old man’s apartment and ultimately found that there was no way an old

The jury in 12 angry men like most humans had their biases. Some of which affected their ability to be objective. Most of the jurors simply wanted to leave, juror number seven in particular he was hasty, ready to change his vote to fit the majority so he could go catch the baseball game. Juror number 10 was slightly bias, in the beginning he often alluding to wanting to leave so he can get back to work but as time passed he listened more to the points presented by the other jurors and stopped talking so much about work and how eager he was to get back to it. Sometimes a juror is faced with their own emotional load that they reflect their views on the case. Juror number 3 was seen as quick-tempered especially when others disagreed with his views. It is revealed that Juror number 3’s attitude throughout the trial was a reflection of how he was feeling inside. His awful relationship with his own son may have been the source of his biased