The Jury System In Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men

The jury system in the United States has served the country well for a long time, but it should not decide cases for the justice system in the future. While on the outside it may seem to be an efficient system, the truth is that it possesses a number of flaws that makes it unfit for the justice system. Reginald Rose’s short story, Twelve Angry Men, displays the problems with this system through the jury of a boy accused of murdering his own father. As the jurors discussed about the boy’s outcome, it grew rather obvious to the readers that there were many defects in the current jury structure, which caused unfairness within the boy’s trial. America should not continue to use the current jury system, because a juror’s judgement may be affected

Most people tend to believe that people raised in slums would have a higher chance of becoming a criminal than residents raised in areas with better conditions. The fourth juror believed in this stereotype as well which is why he claimed in the script that the boy was guilty because “the children who come out of slum backgrounds are potential menances to society” (p??). His claim reveals how prejudices can influence a juror’s judgement in a jury. The fourth juror determined the case with his own opinions instead of factual evidence, judging the boy for his background and not for his actions. This leads to an unfair jury as the accused boy’s fate was getting determined by an impression, which is not even something he could

He had the tickets to the The Seven Year Itch the same night the jury took place, so that event would seem more important than an occurence that doesn’t influence his life by much. He grew so desperate to leave that he told the rest of the jurors he wanted to just “break it up and go home. I’m changing my vote to not guilty.” (p??). This certain scene shows that a juror may not treat the jury like the serious matter it is, especially as the time drags on. Juror 7 clearly wanted to spend his time doing something actually meaningful to himself, so he chose to simply vote with the majority’s opinion so the case could close sooner. This also means that the seventh juror did not actually dissect the evidence and simply voted out of his own benefit, which results into an unfair jury as the verdict was not completely determined by information from the