Reginald Rose's Justice System

In Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, and Sherman L. Sergel, Juror Number Ten believes the Kid is guilty because he has lived in a slum all his life and he has strong negative feelings about kids who grow up in the slum. “knowing what he is. I’ve lived among ‘em my whole life. You can’t believe a word they say” (Reginald Rose, and Shermal L. Sergel 16). Juror Number Ten is excessivley racist and he only cares for his own ethnic group.

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 his infamous “Personal prejudice and financial greed are the two great evils that threaten courts of law, and once they get the upper hand they immediately hamstring society, by destroying all justice.” (Thomas More). As these words from St. Thomas More explain, personal prejudice has long played a part in threatening the judicial system if it overrules personal integrity. Personal prejudice clouds one’s judgment, and therefore makes it difficult to fairly judge the innocence of the defendant. In fact, in the play Twelve Angry Men, Juror Three exhibits the effect that personal prejudice can have on the judicial system, as well as the ineffective arguments produced from this prejudice. He reveals how unsuccessful bias-based arguments are, and the lack of evidence and persuasive reasoning resulting from them. In Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, although Juror three attempts to prove the boy’s guilt with rhetorical appeals to ethos, ultimately his reliance on fallacious arguments and personal prejudice lead to his downfall and eventual breakdown.

One example where Reginald Rose is shown to be against the jury system is when Juror three reveals his relationship with his own son. Juror three ask Juror eight if he has any kids, Juror eight response is no. Juror three right after hearing Juror eight’s response rants about his personal problem with his son ‘“Yeah, well I’ve got one, a boy twenty-two years old….When he was sixteen we had a battle. He hit me in the face! He’s big y’know. I haven’t seen him in two years. Rotten kid. You work your heart out…”’ Juror#3 (190). Juror three has just proven that his verdict is not based on the facts presented, but though on his relationships with his own son. If the law system has Jurors’ like him

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.

However, it isn't just the jurors' own personal prejudice that affects the way they vote. The prosecution of the boy led the jurors to believe that he was a guilty beyond all doubt. Also, the boy's representation was uninterested and uncaring. ‘I kept putting myself in the boy's place. I would have asked for another lawyer, I think. I mean, if I was on trial for my life I'd want my lawyer to tear the prosecution witnesses to shreds, or at least to try.' [Juror 8, page 14]

In the play, 12 Angry Men, written by Reginald Rose, a nineteen-year old boy is accused of the murder of his father. Throughout the play, the jurors argue the boy’s innocence and guilt. Juror Four argues that, “[...] slums are breeding grounds for criminals [...]. The children that come out of slum backgrounds are potential menaces to society”(Rose I. 21). Juror Four, as well as ten other jurors, all agree that because the boy came from a bad background, he is destined to be a criminal and should be executed for the murder. This

More often than not, an individual’s prejudice says more about them than the one subjected to it, which raises the question of whether there is truly someone out there that is capable of deciding what should be punishable from not. It is difficult for most people to act rationally regarding something that challenges their personal beliefs or triggers an incident from the past. But regardless of the reason, this sort of bias leads to discrimination and blanket statements, which then gets in the way of someone’s ability to make sensible decisions. This was best portrayed in the play “The Twelve Angry Men” written by Reginald Rose. Twelve jurors were gathered together to decide a young man’s fate, but almost each one had little to no care for

Prejudice in the movie "Twelve Angry Men" is everywhere and it tailors how these jurors decide whether a boy is guilty and not guilty. An example of prejudice in this movie is juror 10. Juror 10 is a racist: he believes that people who grew up in the poor sections of the cities are trash and violent people. He also believes that people like the boy on trial need to die because "he has the genes of violence and he can not reproduce. "

Can racial bias have an effect on the verdict of being guilty or innocent? The American judicial courtroom has been comprised of the nation’s many greatest racial discriminatory cases over the past century, but the most racially upstanding case, when referring to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird includes The Scottsboro Trials. Both stories uprise in the 1930s, displaying a white supremacist mindset, which two cases fall into the conviction of rape. The Scottsboro case started on a train to northern Alabama to southern Tennessee, when nine African American boys, ranging in ages from 13-19, allegedly raped two “innocent” Caucasian women, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. Racial discrimination uprises in American judicial system when shown in To Kill a Mockingbird and The Scottsboro Trials through the racial prejudice within the jury in the courtroom, easy accessibility to target African Americans, biased accusations, as well as the social pressure to serve in one’s defense.

The movie “12 Angry Men” begins by introducing the young man who is on trial for killing his father. In the movie, it is revealed that the 12 Jurors who heard the case deliberation over all the evidence must return back to court with a unanimous verdict. The jury consists of 12 Caucasian men, middle class to upper class of middle age. The group of men is not only deciding if the young man is guilty but the young man’s life as well.

In “12 Angry Men” a young boy was being judged by jury for the death of his father. One out of the twelve jury’s accused him guilty, just for the color of his skin. The jury didn’t look further into the situation his statement was “ There’s not one of ‘em who’s any good”. He didn’t care in look for more information, neither did he care In hearings others out. All he wanted was to accuse the boy guilty and leave

Consider the scenario of the movie “12 Angry Men”, eleven jurors vote in favor of convicting the accused without even discussing a single shred of evidence that was presented at the trial. In the movie, if Henry Fonda wasn’t part of the jury, the boy would have been declared guilty and would have died (1957). However, Fonda decided to continue investigating and finally got to the bottom of the mystery. The boy was declared not guilty, but neither the play nor the movie tells us whether they saved an innocent man from death or whether they let a guilty man walk free. The movie emphasizes how important our judicial system is, and how much responsibility we have as citizens to become a jury of our peers and not rush into judgment, because as seen in the movie, jurors judged the accused based on their personal life

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.

In the movie 12 Angry Men, the jurors are set in a hot jury room while they are trying to determine the verdict of a young man who is accused of committing a murder. The jurors all explain why they think the accused is guilty or not guilty. Throughout the movie they are debating back and forth and the reader begins to realize that even though the jurors should try to not let bias cloud their judgement, the majority of the jurors are blinded by bias. The viewer can also see that the jurors have their own distinguishable personalities. Their personalities intertwine with each other to demonstrate how the jury system is flawed, but that is what makes it work.