Relational Ethics In 12 Angry Men

The film “12 Angry Men”, produced in 1957, was filmed in a New York City courthouse, with a majority of the filming taking place in the jury room. As the title of the film implies, all twelve of the main characters are men. These twelve men must unanimously determine the guilt or innocence of a teenage defendant, whom is charged with the murder of his father. This is no trivial decision; all jurors understand that a guilty verdict is an automatic death sentence for the defendant. During the initial verbal vote for guilt or innocence, eleven jurors vote guilty and only one votes not guilty. The rest of the film is about consensus building among the twelve jurors, which eventually come to a unanimous verdict of innocence, consequently saving the life of the teenage boy. During the initial vote, juror number 8 was the only one to vote not guilty, not because he thought the defendant was innocent, but because he felt that they should spend time discussing the case before sentencing a young man to his death. Throughout the story juror 8 did not show any cultural or social

He had the weakest relational ethics, he did not contribute to most of the discussions, was easily distracted, and often talked about irrelevant topics. Juror 12 was indecisive, changed his vote several times until finally deciding on “not guilty”. The third juror to change his vote was juror 5. Similar to the defendant, juror 5 was raised in the slums. However, he did not show empathy towards the defendant until the facts caused him to question the testimony of the two witnesses. For these reasons, juror 5 changed his vote to not guilty. Soon after juror 5 changing his vote, juror 11 follows with a not guilty vote. Juror 11 was an immigrant and brought to light the cultural and social prejudices of some of the other jurors. He employed effective communication skills and contributed to group