In the play 12 Angry Men, Reginald Rose describes the trial of a young man who is accused of killing his father. A jury must decide whether to reach a guilty verdict and sentence the nineteen-year-old defendant to death. A lot of evidence proves this teenager is guilty, including the claims of an old man who testified against the boy. However, throughout the play, the twelve jurors thoroughly analyze the evidence of the old man and look at the different aspects and points of view, and eventually, reasonable doubt comes into play, and the boy is proven not guilty. At the beginning of their deliberations, the jurors believe the boy is guilty, due to the old man’s testimony, among others. This old man lived in the same apartment building, on the second floor, right beneath the room where the murder took place. He testifies in court that he heard loud noises in the …show more content…
Juror Eight points out that the noise coming from the elevated train passing in front of the house probably covered up any noise from the upstairs apartment: “The old man would have had to hear the boy say, ‘I’m going to kill you’, while the front of the el [train] was roaring past his nose. It’s not possible that he could have heard it” (54). Furthermore, this old man walks with a pair of canes. For him to get out of bed, get his canes and walk fifty-five feet to the front door in under fifteen seconds and witness the boy running out of the house appears unreasonable. In fact, after recreating the scene in the jury room and realizing it didn’t seem possibly for the old man to walk that far is such a short amount of time, Juror Eight believes “that the old man was trying to get out the door, heard someone racing down the stairs, and assumed that it was the boy” (57). So once the jurors look over the evidence and analyze it more carefully, they change their verdict to
The jury in trying to let the defendant go considered if there were any circumstances that would provide say as a self-defense claim to justify this horrific crime of murder of two people named Mr. Stephan Swan and Mr. Mathew Butler. Throughout the guilt/innocent phase, the jury believes not to have heard convincing evidence the victims were a threat to the defendant nor a sign the defendant was in fear for his life before he took the victims’ lives.
Juror number eight is the main protagonist, he also a reserved with his thoughts, yet very strategic with them. He is the defender of the down trodden victim. He has a calm rational approach to everything and he reveals the gaps in the testimonies placed against the defendant. These examples would be; that the old man couldn’t have seen the boy run out of the house, as the old man had a limp and therefore could not make it to the door in time. The old lady across the road could have never saw the boy stab his father, due to she wasn’t wearing her glasses and it was pitch black. Number eight is a man that s...
Guilty or not guilty? This the key question during the murder trial of a young man accused of fatally stabbing his father. The play 12 Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, introduces to the audience twelve members of a jury made up of contrasting men from various backgrounds. One of the most critical elements of the play is how the personalities and experiences of these men influence their initial majority vote of guilty. Three of the most influential members include juror #3, juror #10, and juror #11. Their past experiences and personal bias determine their thoughts and opinions on the case. Therefore, how a person feels inside is reflected in his/her thoughts, opinions, and behavior.
... I've lived among them all my life. You can't believe a word they say. You know that. I mean, they're born liars.” In this statement you can clearly tell his prejudice against the kid, just because of where he was raised. Juror # 10 and juror # 3 has prejudice against the kid. Juror # 3 has personal experience with a kid like the accused. “Reminded of his own family's personal crisis, Juror # 3 tells the jurors of his own disrespectful, teen aged boy who hit him on the jaw when he was 16. Now 22 years old, the boy hasn't been seen for two years, and the juror is embittered: "Kids! Ya work your heart out."” This is a direct example of juror # 3’s prejudice against the accused. When prejudice was in effect in the movie, it clouded the judgments of the jurors that were prejudice against the boy just because he was raised in the slums.
The first vote ended with eleven men voting guilty and one man not guilty. We soon learn that several of the men voted guilty since the boy had a rough background not because of the facts they were presented with. Although numerous jurors did make racist or prejudice comments, juror ten and juror three seemed to be especially judgmental of certain types of people. Juror three happened to be intolerant of young men and stereotyped them due to an incident that happened to his son. In addition, the third juror began to become somewhat emotional talking about his son, showing his past experience may cloud his judgment. Juror ten who considered all people from the slums “those people” was clearly prejudiced against people from a different social background. Also, Juror ten stated in the beginning of the play “You 're not going to tell us that we 're supposed to believe that kid, knowing what he is. Listen, I 've lived among 'em all my life. You can 't believe a word they say. I mean, they 're born liars.” Juror ten did not respect people from the slums and believed them to all act the same. As a result, Juror ten believed that listening to the facts of the case were pointless. For this reason, the tenth juror already knew how “those people” acted and knew for sure the boy was not innocent. Even juror four mentioned just how the slums are a “breeding ground
Juror #1 originally thought that the boy was guilty. He was convinced that the evidence was concrete enough to convict the boy. He continued to think this until the jury voted the first time and saw that one of the jurors thought that the boy was innocent. Then throughout the movie, all of the jurors were slowly convinced that the boy was no guilty.
Yet with the help of one aged yet wise and optimistic man he speaks his opinion, one that starts to not change however open the minds of the other eleven men on the jury. By doing this the man puts out a visual picture by verbally expressing the facts discussed during the trial, he uses props from the room and other items the he himself brought with him during the course of the trial. Once expressed the gentleman essentially demonstrate that perhaps this young man on trial May or may not be guilty. Which goes to show the lack of research, and misused information that was used in the benefit of the prosecution. For example when a certain factor was brought upon the trail; that being timing, whether or not it took the neighbor 15 seconds to run from his chair all the way to the door. By proving this right or wrong this man Juror #4 put on a demonstration, but first he made sure his notes were correct with the other 11 jurors. After it was
The prosecuting attorney holds the burden of proof and has to prove that Aaron is completely guilty and does not exist third party or other possible explanation of the murder. If the jury has a reasonable doubt about it, Vail and his client Aaron will have won the case. Therefore, Vail’s goal is to place an element of reasonable doubt on the
Conflicts: The conflict is when 12 jurors have to decide whether a boy is guilty or non-guilty based from evidence they took notes on from listening in court. The boy is convicted of murdering his father and has the probability of the death penalty. The 12 jurors go to the conference room to discuss it with one another they have a vote. The vote is to go around the room and each juror verbally states “guilty” or “non-guilty.” After the vote, 11 jurors vote guilty of charge, while a lone juror votes non-guilty which causes great conflict with the other 11 jury members. The lone juror (Juror #8) says that the boy’s life should not be decided on just a vote, he thinks it should be discussed about. So the lone juror states his case on why he voted non-guilty. As he continues to speak he asks to have a revote. So after they tally up the votes, the number of jurors voting guilty and non-guilty has changed from 11-1 to 10-2. This causes and outrage of the 10 guilty jury voters. So as the 12 jurors argue amongst one another, each juror stating what he thinks; they bring out key evidence from the courtroom and continue to discuss and argue. At the end of the discussion of what was to be believed gone on for several hours, there were no guiltier jury voters; they had all changed their votes to non-guilty after Juror #8 convinced each of them of the scenarios of why he thought the boy should be proven not guilty.
Guilty or not guilty, all citizens deserve a thorough trial to defend their rights. Formulating coherent stories about events and circumstances almost cost a young boy his life. In Twelve Angry Men, 1957, a single juror named Mr. Davis, who was initially the only one of 12 jurors to vote not guilty against an 18 year old boy accused of first degree murder, did his duty to save the life of the boy by allowing his mind to rationalize the cohesive information presented by the court and its witnesses. Mr. Davis, juror #8, convinced the other jurors’ that there was room for reasonable doubt that the boy could have killed his father by pointing out key factors of misguidance through intuitive predictions. Without rational thinking, is it safe to
Juror Eight was to first to overlook bias and really look at the entire case with perspective. While all the other jurors voted guilty purely because the boy was raised in a slum and was Puerto Rican, Juror Eight voted not guilty for a chance to discuss the case like a proper jury should. Willing to go against eleven other flustered and aggressive men, Juror Eight was a surprisingly audacious and open-minded man. “It’s not so easy for me to raise my
Above all, the introduction given by the judge is crucial since he states that the jury has the responsibility to distinct the facts and determine if there is a “reasonable doubt” to believe the suspect might be innocent. The suspect is an eighteen year old adolescent accused of murdering his father according to two witnesses who testified against him. In addition, the judge explains that if the final verdict is guilty then a petition for mercy will not be accepted. The drama starts among twelve jurors who strive to reach to a unanimous agreement as indicated by the judge. The only dissenting juror in this group is able to successfully convince the other jurors that the presented evidence was not sufficient to believe the teenager is unmistakably guilty (Rose,
...with. Another piece of evidence was the elderly woman across the el train platform who saw the murder and swears it was the boy but, it is not easy to identify faces, especially through 2 cars of the train where she would be a far distance from the actual murder apartment. Finally is the point that Juror #11 stated, that the boy would not return 3 hours after the murder, he would most likely try to escape somewhere far to avoid being charged, not walking right back to the crime scene. It can also be said that he was lying about going to the movies since he did not remember the film he saw but, when faced with fear, stress or anger, their mind can go blank. An example of this is in war when soldiers train for months and months but when finally see the bloodshed, they forget everything they learned in basic training. From this, I say the 18 year old boy is not guilty.
Through the progression of the movie, it is revealed that almost all the jurors already believe that the boy is guilty however; only one of the jurors believes that the boy is not guilty. The fact that one of the juror believes that the
Twelve Angry Men screenplay writer Reginald Rose once stated: “ It takes a great deal of courage to stand alone even if you believe in something very strongly.” In the film Twelve Angry Men, twelve jurors have to decide the justice of a young h/Hispanic boy. Every juror except one votes guilty, which meant that the jurors have to deliberate longer. The final decision the jurors make at the end of the film is found not guilty. The main aspects of the film include: setting, themes, and counter arguments. Every aspect has its own importance. The setting is filmed in one room. The themes display topics that deal with real life situations. Also the counter arguments are important because they also contribute to determining if the boy is found guilty