During the time Reginald Rose wrote the play Twelve Angry Men America was not an equal place for all people. A democracy is founded on the ideology that all Americans should be given a fair trial in court before being declared guilty. The twelve jurors in the play come from various backgrounds but initially, all but one vote in favor of the boy’s unforgivable sentence; while two other jurors lift two strong social stigmas and overcome their bias. One juror decided to stand up and take the time out for proper reasoning that resulted in teaching the others two jurors a lesson. Final verdicts should be made on justifiable grounds or the foundation of America’s society could be left at risk for collapse. Justifiable final verdicts are skewed when people follow the majority and that appeared to be a problem in the beginning of the play. The three jurors that stood out for their realism were the 7th, 8th, and 10th jurors because the 7th and 10th showed how society can be prejudice but an unbiased mediator can solve that harsh problem. In order to raise awareness, Reginald Rose presents three characters in his play Twelve Angry Men, and proposes that they are realistic jurors through their reasoning towards a unanimous verdict. The 10th Juror was realistic because of his racism towards the young boy even though he did not know him, yet the juror eventually overcame his prejudice through reasoning. Rose showed that race had nothing to do with this case when in Act II; the 10th juror snaps but is quickly ignored by the whole group when he shouted, “Now you goddamned geniuses had better listen to me. They’re violent, they’re vicious, they’re ignorant, and they will cut us up. …I say get him before his kind gets us”. ..2nd Juror: I’ve hear... ... middle of paper ... ...xperts on Real Juries: A Delicate Balance.” William & Mary Law Review 55.3 (2014): 885-933. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. Riordan, Kate. “Ten Angry Men: Unanimous Jury Verdicts in Criminal Trials and Incorporation After Mcdonald.”Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 101.4 (2011): 1403-1433. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. Rose, Reginald. Twelve Angry Men. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print. Weddell, Hilary. “A Jury of Whose Peers?: Eliminating Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection Procedures.” Boston College Journal of Law & Social Justice 33.2 (2013): 453-486. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. Wood, Jane L., Mark James, and Caoilte Ó. Ciardha. “‘I Know How They Must Feel': Empathy and Judging Defendants.”European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context 6.1 (2014): 37-43. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
Smith, William (1997) “Useful or Just Plain Unfair? The Debate Over Peremptories; Lawyers, Judges Spllit Over the Value of Jury Selection Method” The Legal Intelligencer, April 23: pg 1.
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
This essay will compare and contrast the protagonist/antagonist's relationship with each other and the other jurors in the play and in the movie versions of Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men. There aren't any changes made to the key part of the story, but yet the minor changes made in making the movie adaptation produce a different picture than what one imagines when reading the drama in the form of a play. First off, the settings in the movie are a great deal more fleshed out. In the play, the scene begins with the jurors regarding the judge's final statements concerning the case in the courtroom and then walking out into the jury room. In the movie, the audience is placed in the role of the invisible casual observer, who for perhaps the first 5 minutes of the movie, walks throughout the court building passing other court rooms, lawyers, defendants, security officers, elevators, etc.
These two jurors are almost the plain opposite of each other. Juror 3 appears to be a very intolerant man accustomed of forcing his wishes and views upon others. On the other hand, Juror 8 is an honest man who keeps an open mind for both evidence and reasonable doubt. Since these two people are indeed very different, they both have singular thoughts relating to the murder case. Juror 8 is a man who is loyal to justice. In the beginning of the play, he was the only one to vote ‘not guilty’ the first time the twelve men called a vote. Although his personality is reflected on being a quiet, thoughtful, gentle man, he is still a very persistent person who will fight for justice to be done. Juror 8 is a convincing man who presents his arguments well, but can also be seen as manipulative. An example would be when he kept provoking Juror 3 until he finally said “I’m going to kill you" to Juror 8. He did this because he wanted to prove that saying "I’ll kill you" doesn’t necessarily mean that Juror 3 was actually going to kill him. Juror 3 is a totally different character. He is a stubborn man who can be detected with a streak of sad...
Twelve Angry Men, is a play written by Reginald Rose. The play is about the process of individuals and a court case, which is determining the fate of a teenager. It presents the themes of justice, independence and ignorance. Rose emphasises these three themes through the characters and the dialogue. Justice is the principle of moral rightness or equity. This is shown through juror number eight who isn’t sure whether or not the boy is actually innocent or guilty, but he persists to ask questions and convinces the other jurors to think about the facts first. Independence is shown through both juror number three and ten. They both believe that the defendant is guilty until they both realise that they can not relate there past experiences with the court case. Ignorance is shown throughout all the jurors during the play, it is also brought out through the setting of the play.
Juror #10, a garage owner, segregates and divides the world stereotypically into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ ‘Us’ being people living around the rich or middle-class areas, and ‘them’ being people of a different race, or possessing a contrasting skin color, born and raised in the slums (poorer parts of town). It is because of this that he has a bias against the young man on trial, for the young man was born in the slums and was victim to domestic violence since the age of 5. Also, the boy is of a Hispanic descent and is of a different race than this juror, making him fall under the juror’s discriminatory description of a criminal. This is proven on when juror #10 rants: “They don’t need any real big reason to kill someone, either. You know, they get drunk, and bang, someone’s lying in the gutter… most of them, it’s like they have no feelings (59).
The American courtroom drama teleplay ’12 Angry Men’ by Reginald Rose is a classic and highlights the flaws of the judicial system. Published in 1954, the play is set in a jury room in New York. It focuses on the 12 members of the jury having to deliberate and try reach a unanimous decision that will determine the defendant’s fate. This essay will argue that Reginald Roses’ play will continue to be relevant due to its similarity of flaws and imperfections in the judicial system, which will be shown on various levels, and how in today’s society we still encounter these issues. This is displayed through the deliberate construction of character relationships and enduring themes of prejudice.
Stevenson, D 2012, The function of uncertainty within jury systems, George Mason Law Review, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 513-548, viewed 6 May 2014, .
People's bias and predispositions can affect their opinion of different circumstances and different people. This is very evident throughout the play. After the first group vote and juror 8 votes not guilty, a discussion ensues. It is there that the jurors' personal prejudices come out and we the readers/viewers are able to see how this has influenced and shaped what they think.
Stevenson, Bryan A. Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection. Rep. Montgomery, Alabama: Equal Justice Initiative, 2010. Print.
The film 12 Angry Men depicts the challenge faced by a jury as they deliberate the charges brought against an 18-year-old boy for the first-degree murder of his father. Their task is to come to an impartial verdict, based on the testimony that was heard in court. The group went through the case over and over while personal prejudices, personality differences, and tension mounted as the process evolved. While the scorching hot weather conditions and personal affairs to tend to led the juror to make quick and rash decisions, one juror convinced them the fate of the 18 year old was more important than everyone’s problems an convinced them that they could not be sure he was guilty. Juror three took the most convincing. After fighting till he
As once Martin Luther King Jr. said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Humans are imperfect and contain fatal flaws such as lacking fairness in vast situations. In today’s modern time, many obstacles lack righteousness such as the court system. In Twelve Angry Men, Reginald Rose conveys the theme injustice through his characterization of contrasting juror 3 and juror 8 using character foil and the extensive archetypal use of light vs darkness.
He is also the last juror to vote the defendant not guilty. The author of “The 50th Anniversary of 12 Angry Men: Mad About 12 Angry Men” asserts “[h]e too has been an abusive father, and the result has been violence and schism in his family. The harm suffered is not just to his child but to Juror #3 himself” (Landsman 3). According to Landsman, the third juror has been “an abusive father”, which means that he bases his decision off of his personal experiences. Discrimination is oftentimes caused by the assumptions created by the experiences of the people. Clearly, the third juror believes that the defendant is also a ruthless murderer. He compares the defendant to his own son, whom he has abused and been abused by. Landsman also states that the third juror is “so angry about his son that he lets his feelings destroy his ability to deliberate rationally” (4). Judging others based on personal feelings is unfair and should not be allowed in the court
The movie “12 Angry Men” examines the dynamics at play in a United States jury room in the 1950’s. It revolves around the opinions and mindsets of twelve diverse characters that are tasked with pronouncing the guilt or innocence of a young man accused of patricide. The extraordinary element is that their finding will determine his life or death. This play was made into a movie in 1957, produced by Henry Fonda who played the lead role, Juror #8, and Reginald Rose who wrote the original screenplay. This essay will explore some of the critical thinking elements found within the context of this movie, and will show that rational reason and logic when used effectively can overcome the mostly ineffective rush to judgment that can be prevalent in a population. The juror that seemed interesting is Juror #8, who was played by Henry Fonda. Juror #8, or Davis, is an architect, the first dissenter and protagonist in the film. He was the first one to declare that the young man was innocent and he managed to convince the other jurors to see his point of view. Durkheim states that when we respond to deviance, it brings people together (Macionis, 2013, p. 159). We affirm the moral ties that bind us together, which was seen in the movie. At first, almost all of the jurors were so bent on convicting the young man based on their feelings, but they then started to analyze the facts and they came together to make their final decision.
Observing all the jurors, they all have different thoughts and belief about why they are truly there to determine the young boys fate. Juror seven, the individual who was obsessed with going to a baseball game, seemed not to care about the boys fate, and was self-centered. Then there were some who were so focused on facts said in court, and would not look at the circumstances surrounding the facts, for example: that there was only one switch knife like that in the world, however, that was proven wrong. Juror three was overcome by entire case, because of his son running away two years before, because the juror beat him “until he was a man.” The tenth juror allowed his prejudice mind to effect his decision, it was not until the end that he knew what he was saying was racists and held no facts (everyone is human). Juror twelve made me the most upset because he was easily bullied into a different decision every time someone talked; he truly was playing both sides.