Category: 12 Angry Men Responces

From the beginning of the film it becomes clear that reasoning does not play a role for everyone’s decision in voting. The preliminary vote ,done by a show of hands, proves this as a few jurors look at their peers before raising their hands in voting “guilty. This suggests that they have not come to their conclusion based on reason but,  by a “majority rules” mentality. The results of this vote come to a 11-1 count in favor of finding the defendant guilty. This prompts the group to convince the 8th juror of the defendant’s guilt. It becomes evident from the 2nd juror’s reasoning, or lack thereof, that he is voting on whim. He explains his vote is based on how he feels, that he “just thinks he’s guilty”.The only one character who seems to be only persuaded by reasoning and evidence and not circumstance or emotion is the 4th Juror .His occupation as a stockbroker and logical personality make him , unmoved by emotion. His reasoning had nothing to do with his own circumstances or biases. Although he doesn’t agree with those who vote not guilty he never shows emotion and distances himself from those who do like the third juror.

The 3rd Juror is staunch in his belief of the defendant’s guilt from the beginning. Over the course of the film it becomes obvious that he’s basing his decision on personal experience with his own son who reminds him of the defendant. Throughout he claims that he is rational and basing his decision on fact but his emotions always seem to get the best of him making him irrational. Whether he became enraged at other jurors for arguing for the defendant’s innocence or even going against evidence he once claimed to be proof of the defendant’s guilt .One example of this is when he stands by the old man’s testimony of making it to the door in time to see the defendant running down the stairs . When this evidence is broken down,(like the old man’s limp not allowing him to physically make it to the door in the time he stated) he dismisses the flaws in the old man’s story and says something to the effect of the old man not being able to remember because he’s old.

While the emotions of the jurors created disruption while discussing the evidence in the case ,I argue that emotions played an overall positive role . As emotions run high it allows for other jurors to use reason. Emotions eventually exposed the bias that the jurors have like prejudice. We see this when the 11th Juror who has an immediate disdain for the defendant because he is the product of the slums and an immigrant. Towards the end he exposes himself to the other jurors as a bigot and actually comes to terms with his prejudice. He votes not guilty towards the end when he realizes that he hadn’t been using reasoning or evidence.

Although the  8th juror seems to be the voice of reason , the audience learns early on that part of his reasoning for not wanting to vote guilty seems to be in part because he feels the boy is so young and shouldn’t be killed. It is important to note however that this emotion and feeling the 8th juror has towards the young boys life also acts in a positive way and allows him to put evidence into perspective . It is what allows him to think beyond the presentation by the prosecution. One example is when he goes into the boy’s neighborhood and finds a knife that is just like the “rare” knife the defendant is accused of using to kill his father with. This initiative is also what makes the 8th juror a leader.

Leadership played a large role throughout the entire film.The 8th juror emerges as obvious leader , not only for going against the grain and voting not guilty,but because of his ability to stand his ground and persuade the majority of jurors to review evidence throughout the film. This leadership also propelled other jurors to speak up and take leadership roles. One example is when the 9th juror is persuaded by the knife evidence presented by 8th juror . After the 9th juror is convinced he consistently and speaks up in favor of the not guilty vote and provides his own opinion and assists in breaking down the testimony of the old man.

Even though the foreman was the court-appointed “leader” of the jury, he did not exhibit any real leadership throughout the discussion. At first, he loosely tried to establish procedures for deliberation, however his actual role throughout the film was as a gate-keeper for voting. This allowed space for another leader to emerge organically, but not without considerable struggle. I instinctively want to point to Juror #8 as the group’s appointed leader, however I think the leadership role in this setting was fluctuating constantly. Perhaps that is the poetry of #8’s leadership role–he lead by example and invited others to follow of their own accord.

No formal procedures dictated who spoke, although the foreman did suggest that the jurors go around the table and each express his opinion on the defendant’s guilt or innocence. Even with this structure in place, the discussion often broke away from this format, with the loudest man telling men he disagreed with or perceived to be weaker to be quiet. Since there was no clear structure, the discussion quickly devolved into one where the loudest voices and peer-pressure prevailed. This format, employed in the beginning by the majority, did not withstand the rational, calm arguments of the few. As a model to use for other discussions, I don’t think the “12 Angry Men approach” is productive the majority of the time. In this case, however, the discussion had an unseen moderator: American, white-male centered worldviews. Since they all shared this worldview in one way or another, they were able to govern themselves and the discussion productively. If any or some of the jurors had a drastically different worldview from the others, I believe the discussion would have been wildly counterproductive.

 

There were a lot of varied emotions portrayed in this movie “12 Angry Men”. These emotions were portrayed throughout the entire movie, from the very beginning of the movie to the very last scene of the movie. The Jurors discussions started out with juror #1 took charge to set the rules as to how they were going to vote and the order in which they were even going to be seated to the order in which they were going to take turns in speaking. From this setup the juror #1 encourage a sort of democratic style of leadership by encouraging the other to voice out what they were thinking and think might work better.

It seems all the jurors were in some sort of hurry to cast their vote so they can be done with that and get to a more important business. All the jurors except juror #8 who cast his first vote by not just basing his decision on only the facts that were presented to them in the court room. All the others had their mind made up without much thought to how substantial the evidence presented were.

It was because of the boldness of juror #8 that logical reasoning was applied to come to the final unanimous NOT GUILTY verdict by the jurors. It is sad to say if juror #8 was not part of this juror group there will not have been any other form of deliberation in favor of the young boy.

I am not sure how the deliberation would have gone had it been a different crowd as the jurors for this case, in terms of gender, social class, race and marital status. Would it have been different? Maybe or maybe not. What I am sure of is that all it took was one bold and willing juror to make the difference from what started out as 11:1 in favor of the boy being guilty to 0:12 in favor of the boy not being guilty. In my opinion there were 2 leaders in this jurors. The one who led them to the best logical reasoning decision and the one who made sure some rules were in place.