Essay on Insisting Equality: Twelve Angry Men

Similarly ,In Twelve Angry Men Juror 8 is a smart and moral juror who is willing to stand against all the other jurors for what he thinks is right. He is the main protagonist who believes a boy accused with murdering his father deserves a discussion prior to a guilty verdict. Although all the other jurors initially voted guilty, juror 8 believed that the jurors should not “send a boy off to die without talking about it first”(Juror 8, 12). Throughout the play Juror 8 combats the pressure from the other Jurors to just vote guilty and manages to convince his fellow Jurors one by one that there in fact is “reasonable doubt”(Judge, 6) and convinces them to arrive at a “not guilty”(Juror 3, 72) verdict. Reginald Rose extols Juror 8’s pursuit of justice through his success. Not only did Juror 8 stand by his principles and have the courage to stand against all the other Jurors, he also had the wits to convince his fellow jurors to change their verdict. Through these actions Juror 8 brings justice to the courts of New York city saving the life of a young boy.

Twelve angry men by Reginald Rose is an intriguing play that explores the idea of personal experience affecting ones decision. Indeed Rose shows that decision-making is based on personal experiences. This is evident in the play when the 3rd Juror’s personal experience with his own son influences his decision and as a result he votes for guilty, the 9th Jurors old age becomes one of the greatest factors which influences his judgement of the boy ; when the 5th Jurors personal experience in a slum causes further doubts to form in his mind It is clear throughout the play that personal

Reginald Rose’s ‘Twelve Angry Men’ is a play which displays the twelve individual jurors’ characteristics through the deliberation of a first degree murder case. Out of the twelve jurors, the 8th Juror shows an outstanding heroism exists in his individual bravery and truthfulness. At the start, the 8th Juror stands alone with his opposing view of the case to the other eleven jurors. Furthermore, he is depicted as a juror who definitely understands the jury system and defends it from the jurors who do not know it fully. At the end, he eventually successes to persuade the eleven other jurors and achieves a unanimous verdict, showing his

In the play “Twelve Angry men”, the story line presents a variety of perspectives and opinions between twelve very different men. Some are more likely to be pointed out as prejudice, and others are more focused on reaching fair justice. Clearly, it is quite difficult for different people to vote ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’ in unity when coming to a fair decision. In all of the twelve jurors, I have chosen Juror 3 and Juror 8 for contrast and comparison. I believe that Juror number 3 is a very opinionated man, with more differences than similarities comparing with Juror number 8.

At times the defendant is treated very unfairly and is often discriminated due to his personal background. It is certainly the 10th juror who most vehemently represents the potential frightening power of racism and xenophobia. He is convinced that the defendant is guilty and he views the defendant “not as an individual, but as a representative of a larger group.” The 10th Juror does not want any further discussions and wants the boy to be sent to the electric chair. The 10th is very unfair on the defendant and expresses his hate towards people from the slums “it’s

Juror 10 and Juror 3 are both connected through bias. Juror 10 is very biased towards his opinions of people of other races. Juror 3 is very biased because he went through a similar situation with his son as the accused went through with his father. This is represented by their closeness in the diagram, Juror 2 is further away because he isn’t as biased. Juror 10 and Juror 3 both think they are above everyone else, which is represented by Juror 3 and 10 being above Juror 2. Juror 2 is very humble and doesn’t seem to have much power over anyone. This also is represented on the diagram with the sizes of the shapes, Juror 10 and Juror 3’s shapes are larger, while Juror 2’s shape is smaller. As you can see, the jurors in 12 Angry Men are all very different, but their differences help challenge everyone’s thoughts in the jury

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

In Reginald Rose’s 12 Angry Men there is a clear juror whom swayed the others and directly expressed his ideas. He is a “gentle man...who wants justice to be done.” Juror no.8 is the hero as his initial choice to vote not guilty locks in the boy's fate of escaping a life of prison and punishment; not excluding his persuasiveness and ideology of the morality of the other jurors. Juror no.8 single handedly voted against the grain and convinced other jurors of his logical reasons ‘it’s not easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy of to die before talking about it first’. It was heroic of him to stand out against the others and the dramatic conclusion greatly attributed to his significant factor as the vote sway from 11-1 guilty to 12-0 for not guilty. Juror no.8 helped conveyed to the other jurors the boy's innocence. Persuading jurors in a chill mannerism whist jurors 3 and 10 were angry and impatient. Over the case juror no.8 was calm and reviewed the evidence taken from the prosecution and it's flaws. Juror no.8 constantly reviewed the evidence with other jurors presenting logical

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 complexity of justice is evident in Reginald Rose’s ‘Twelve Angry Men’, through the employment of Truth throughout the American 1950’s judicial system. Throughout the text, the concept of justice is forged by the racal prejudices, personal bias, emotion, logistics, and reasoning of the Jurors, thus allowing truth to hinder or prevail. Justice is shaped by truth in ‘Twelve Angry Men’, as the Jurors begin to understand the reasonable doubt in the evidence against the defendant, as the truth becomes prevalent through the Juror’s deductive capabilities, thus allowing for injustice to be hindered by the truth, which ultimately leads justice to prevail in the judicial system.

There are many significant views and values that Reginald Rose demonstrates in 12 Angry Men the most important one being that prejudice constantly affects the truth and peoples judgement. As the jurors argue between themselves as to whether a young boy is guilty of stabbing his father it is shown that “It’s very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this.” This is most evident in the way juror #3 and juror #10 come to their decision that the young man is guilty as they bring in there prejudice against young people and people from the slums to make their judgement without considering the facts of the case. Rose uses juror #8 who can see the whole trial because he is calm, reasonable and brings no prejudice as a prime example

In the world renowned play Twelve Angry Men, the accused’s innocence or guilt is never resolved. Set in the New York summer of 1957, the playwright Reginald Rose explores themes of prejudice and the right to justice in his play and surprisingly finishes his play without a verdict. However there are many signs which directly encourage the reader to believe that the defendant is not guilty. The quintessential nature of this epiphany is displayed when Juror 3 finally concedes that the defendant is not guilty and all 12 jurors walk out of the jury room. This is a solid example of the accused’s guilt being resolved.

In “Twelve Angry Men” Reginald Rose shows how flawed the justice system could really be. He portrays this concept in this story by having 12 jurors try to figure out if a nineteen year old boy that grew up in the slums is guilty or not. The jurors automatically assumed that he is guilty only because of the fact that he was always getting into trouble when he was younger. Even after they heard all the unclear evidence that was given, 11 out of the 12 said that he was still guilty. If it wasn’t for the 1 juror that spoke up about how the evidence wasn’t clear, the boy would’ve been declared guilty. There has been many cases up to this date that show this type of prejudice.

“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”William Blackstone. Nowadays, the judicial system sometimes can still be affected by economic, social or cultural factors. In The twelve angry man, most the jurors voted guilty based on the boy’s back ground, he grew up in slum so the jurors believe that he stabbed his father in the first vote instead of considered that everyone is innocence before proving guilty. Today In the American justice system, what happened in the book can still occur in real life, judgment in court is not completely unbiased because most people cannot judge a situation with total objectivity.

On October 3, 1955 one of America’s most immense juror cases had finally announced a verdict , O.J Simpson was found not guilty in killing his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman - Nicole’s friend. Only to find out years later that O.J. was actually guilty for this crime, when detectives went to O.J.’s estate home they found multiple evidence such as blood all over his white Bronco, hairs of his on Ron’s shirt, and even footprints of Simpson’s shoe size. Was the United States justice system so corrupt and prejudice to the point that they let a guilty man free just because of his social status and money. Simpson displays the main topic in the short story 12 Angry Men which is whether the United States has a prejudice unfair justice system. Sidney Lumet and Reginald Rose the writers and directors of 12 Angry Men wrote and produced a play about 12 jurors that briefly discuss a trial and come to a verdict , personal issues develop which causes conflict and only makes the process more grueling. The accused boy is being found guilty for murdering his father, 12 jurors are put in a hot room in New York and spend hours briefly viewing the scenario. Although one might think that the justice system should be left in the hands of citizens ,the director of 12 Angry Men , Sidney Lumet demonstrate that the United States justice system is unfair and is simply corrupt , inefficient , and unjust due to the jurors biased way of thinking, ignorant attitude ,and the lack of