Film Analysis: 12 Angry Men

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Recommended: Ethics in criminal justice

Guilty or not guilty, often an easy answer when you are not considering a life is on the line. However when a life is on the line, meaning that if the verdict is guilty, the person is automatically sentenced to death, you would hope a jury would be sure that a person is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, before sending a person to death. While watching the movie, 12 Angry Men, what seemed to be an open-and-shut guilty verdict for the jury, instead took a viewer through numerous ethical dilemmas, specifically dealing with prejudice, capital punishment, integrity, anger and hostility resulting in reasonable doubt.

Overview of Film

A young man who is 18-years is on trial for the first-degree murder of his father, who the prosecution is trying to prove he stabbed his father to death. The judge advises the jury to look at all the evidence presented today and be sure without a reasonable doubt of this boy’s guilt, as this guilty verdict means an automatic sentence of death.

A 12-man jury leaves the court room, and enters the deliberation room, which is extremely hot and small quarters to determine the young man’s fate. The men, names never given during deliberation, are only referred to by their jury number, actually sit around the table in the order of their number. The jurors immediately take a vote, and eleven vote guilty, while Juror 8 votes not guilty. The other jurors are upset by his actions, they don’t understand how he could think he was not guilty. Juror #8 stands with his convictions, and insist that while the young man is probably guilty, he wants to be sure that they really examine all the evidence to ensure that he is guilty without a reasonably doubt. Juror #8, wanting to discuss the case is similar to McLemore’s “G...

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...ul moment in the movie, similar to McLemore’s Guideline #3 “it is to a man’s honor if he avoids quarrels, but fools never exercise self-control” (2003). Instead of the other jurors engaging in an argument, and telling him how ignorant he was, they made a stronger statement by turning their backs to him, shutting him out. Eventually, Juror #10 voted not guilty.

Conclusion

Through Juror #8’s patient systematic review of each of the prosecutor’s evidence, little by little each juror changed their vote to not guilty. Eventually, all 12 jurors voted not guilty, due to reasonable doubt. While the movie never did actually say if the defendant was guilty or not, the justice system worked. The evidence was reviewed and deliberated, though the jury’s biases and ethical dilemmas, ultimately proved to show reasonable doubt, and the rights of the accused was protected.

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