By now you are well aware of how easy it is to “cherry pick” evidence. In the article you just read, Mike D’Angelo makes the case that the jurors in 12 Angry Men made a big mistake in their assessment of the evidence: while there was room for reasonable doubt about any of the pieces of evidence taken individually, their combined weight really leaves no room for doubt. Do you agree with his assessment? Why or why not?
23 thoughts on “Did 12 Angry Men Get It Wrong?”
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Although I see what D’Angelo is trying to convey with his article I believe the point Fonda was trying to communicate was that there existed some reasonable doubt in the defendants guilt, with this doubt in play should this young man be sentenced to death.
I think its important to look at both sides equally that is why in our judicial system the prosecutor is charged with proving a case of guilt and the defendant is charged with presenting a case of innocence, but according to the movie The Kid’s lawyer did not do a good job of making his case. Who knows what initial vote in the deliberation room or the outcome would have been had the lawyer presented a more aggressive defense.
We can agree all the evidence and witness testimony is circumstantial when taken apart and together as D’Angelo brings to light is very unlikely to have happened. But at the end of the day every key piece of evidence could have truly happened the way Fonda describes, it is improbable but not impossible.
We should take our jobs as jurors seriously because you are in fact holding the fate of another life in your hands but look at both sides of the case and listen to what is presented before you. It’s important to note some people are actually guilty of crimes they commit. Lets not over think the moral of this movie which was to “[speak] powerfully to our belief that one individual with a conscience can make a real difference in the world”.
Maybe as D’Angelo suggest if the movie were made in a different era the outcome would have been different.
Their are many examples of how compounded evidence does not prove facts. Especially in criminal investigations the noble motives of the prosecution to seek just can cause them to railroad the innocent in a misguide pursuit. Witnesses can be coerced through peer-pressure, experts can use science to direct evidence to support the prosecutions claim, one piece of evidence inadvertently motivates the others to say the same because no one wants to b on the “wrong side of the truth”. Evidence like all scientific findings can be interpreted as one wishes, good storytellers can create a scenario that aligns with all the facts but is not the truth.
Mike D’ Angelo makes a valid argument that challenges the outcome verdict in 12 Angry Men. The analogy that was made between OJ Simpson and the defendant in 12 Angry men is a persuasive approach. Both D’Angelo and Juror # 8 in 12 Angry Men have presented valid arguments that can sway the reader in either direction. Regardless if the reader agrees with D’ Angelo’s assessment, it is important to listen to both sides of an argument. It is possible that the “facts” presented in 12 Angry men were true and the arguments made by Juror #8 were just coincidences, as D’Angelo mention. It is also possible that Juror # 8 arguments were pivotal in proving the innocence of the defendant. Originally, the jurors concluded the defendant was guilty without discussing the evidence presented in the case. In a sense, Juror # 8 did trigger deliberative discussion, which played a critical role in uncovering the type of bias that exist in society. Then, the most important part is not the outcome. Rather, it is the deliberation process and it’s contribution to the outcome.
I agree with D’Angelo’s assessment of the evidence from the movie. He makes a convincing point by saying that when you are examining evidence for a case, you cannot or should not explore each piece separately in a vacuum – because they did not occur separately. As D’Angelo states, any of the evidence is easy to argue on a standalone basis but when combined, there is no room for doubt.
Although Juror number 8 was able to discredit or explain each piece of evidence against The Kid, it is not only one piece of evidence that the defendant faces; it is the collection of all evidence. I agree with the point D’Angelo makes saying “You’d have to be the jurisprudential inverse of a national lottery winner to face so many apparently damning coincidences and misidentifications.”
D’Angelo had a good comparison to O.J. Simpson. When looking at the O.J. case, each piece of evidence presented by the prosecution could be explained or discredited. But when examining all of the evidence as a whole, using common sense, and determining the likelihood that all of the evidence is a coincidence – it again leaves no room for doubt that Simpson was guilty.
Mike D’Angelo definitely raises some valid points about the amount of evidence pointed against the accused. It is rather rare for all the evidence presented in court to be false or completely flawed. Perhaps he is even right when he said the kid may have been guilty even if the jury found him not guilty. While watching the movie “12 Angry Men,” I also did wonder about the possibility of Henry Fonda carrying the same pocket knife as the accused. Overall, I do agree with his assessment of the case if this had been a real life situation – which is why he makes reference to the OJ. Simpson case.
However, it is important to notice that the point of the movie is not to make perfect sense of the situation. The point of the movie is to look at the evidence presented at court and show that it’s worth questioning. The fact that Henry Fonda was able to convince the jury to even think twice about everything they thought to be the truth is enough proof that there is room to discredit. The idea is to focus on discussing the issue at hand thoroughly and looking at every piece of evidence without jumping to conclusion and that was the point of the jury deliberation.
Mike D’Angelo makes a convincing argument, when looking at all the events consecutively, it is impossible to believe that the Kid was not guilty. The reasonable doubt that the jurors had come from their assessment of each event happening individually and not together. However, when they are all put together, there happens to be no reasonable doubt that he is guilty.
However, I think that D’Angelo is forgetting one important factor of the movie 12 Angry Men which is the art of deliberation. If the jurors did not “nit-pick” and consider each event individually would there have been true deliberation? In a trial we should consider each event carefully and be able to discuss the validity of them. While it is important to look at the big picture, it is also important to consider the individual details to make sure that they are truthful to generate the “big picture.” Of course it would seem impossible for all these events to happen at once to make the kid not guilty. D’Angelo is doubting these events but he gives no reasonable explanation of why it isn’t possible for all these events to happen one after the other. Yet the writer gives a reasoning for why it would be possible for these events to be true. D’Angelo claims that the jurors reasoning is circumstantial but, at the same time, his reasoning is circumstantial as well because the impossible is quite possible.
The probability that all of the evidence is erroneous in pointing to The Kid guilt is not high. D’Angelo has a convincing argument that counters the final reasoning of the jury. However I don’t want to flip on this. I believed The Kid was not guilty and this argument is giving me cognitive dissonance. I liked juror 8 and his authority. This is running up against the consistency of my attitude toward the jury’s deliberation. Was I simply convinced that the jurors’ conversions one by one was evidence that they were right? And if I change my mind now am I just being swayed by another powerful persuader.
I do understand the argument D’Angleos is making, he argues that all the evidence together does not leave reasonable doubt. In his rationale each piece of evidence needs the other; order is extremely important. However, each fact presented should be able to stand on its own merit. The facts help to develop and support a theory or belief, once you buy into the story it is hard to change your mind. Being able to step back and take it apart is an important step to do. One could simply accept the facts as presented because it’s too difficult to imagine every other possibly. While it would be a daunting task, in the situation presented it is exactly what is needed.
D’Angelo makes a compelling argument about the large amount of evidence pointing towards the kid not to be guilty or guilty. Juror 8 forces 11 juries to reconsider their decisions, when all 11 believed beyond a reasonable doubt that The Kid was guilty. He makes a comparison on the O.J. Simpson case by stating that if all the evidence used in that case proved O.J to be guilty, then The Kid should have been guilty as well. There were just too many coincidences to prove The Kid’s innocence, while in fact he should have been guilty. When you look at the evidence as a collective it seemed that The Kid was guilty, however, as we dissect it, the direction turns another way. Juror 8 convinced the other jurors with words that turned the verdict around. D’ Angelo points out that there were a lot of circumstantial evidence involved. The foundation of our judicial system is that people are guilty until they are proved innocent. It showed how the juries were easy to persuade to change another person’s perspective with no evidence. I disagree with D’Angelo because sometimes even the strongest evidence or arguments can be destroyed by a single detail. Sometimes jurors have already decided on their verdict even before presenting the case as a whole. The movie was made during the time racism played a huge role in America. Therefore, jurors here could have made premature decisions.
D’Angelo’s article has great merit and is in all likelihood completely correct. The statistics of chance that were pushed aside in writing the 12 Angry Men script are preposterous. I think that the analysis brings up important points about the logic behind a conviction. A great example for the outlandish assumptions that it requires of its audience, the movie still might not really fit the bill for the type of case that D’Angelo is looking to debunk.
I think that statistical possibility should be factored into a court case and conviction. D’Angelo is right that this case is statistically impossible. However, in this case, I think that the doubt lies in all of the right places.
Fonda’s character adeptly convinced the jurors, and me, of considerable evidence that the both of the witnesses are lying or mistaken. At the very least, their testimony seems faulty. These are huge, and largely leave the case to hinge on an argument, a lie about alibi, and the enormous knife coincidence.
I had a problem accepting the parallel drawn by Juror 8 between “the Kid’s” claim of temporary memory loss, and the experiment in the jury room. These instances were not alike. This single inconsistency in logic makes me question the rest of the movie, and makes D’Angelo’s use of it as an example possibly too unrealistic.
Regardless of improbability, the movie succeeds in showing that emotional appeal can be a great argumentative tactic.
Mike D’ Angelo’s effort to challenge the final verdict in 12 Angry Men based on the fact that each piece of evidence should not be explored separately is flawed. It is important to consider the individual details in other to create the whole picture especially in the particular situation when there is a chronological sequence that leads to the generation of the big picture he is talking about. Almost all the evidence provided by the persecution had a timeline attached to it. The persecution used this timeline in building their case so it is very important to examine the evidence in the order in which they happened in order to create a better understanding of the circumstances.
Juror number 8 didn’t set out to discredit each piece of evidence or prove the kids innocence, he wanted to have a deliberative discussion in a bit to provide answers for questions he had in mind. For a guilty verdict to be reached a jury has to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt which was not the case in this circumstance and also in OJ.Simpson’s case.
I contend that in the case of 12 angry men (considering the deliberative process) , the argument is not whether the kid did kill his father but about if there is enough evidence to convict him. In fact, to my understanding, the question we should pose is; does the evidence show that the kid is guilty beyond reasonable doubt? Although I am tempted to challenge my reasons that D’Angelo’s approach to the way the evidences were presented could point towards the child being guilty but what about the heuristic method used by juror 8? I still stand firmly that they were the evidences presented were not enough to convict the accused. Would that be called cognitive consistency?
What juror 8 did is, he stimulated the other jurors to use cognitive dissonance and challenge their confirmation bias. There were a lot of jurors who had very strong beliefs that the kid was guilty. At many times, during the debate, viewers could see that these jurors would rather change their attitudes and behaviors to the evidence presented in lieu of questioning their beliefs. For instance, in order to challenge their beliefs, he’s assessed one of the evidences using the example of the woman who had marks on her nose and who might have been wearing glasses.
Moreover, according to me, it seems that the way D’ Angelo presented the argument in his analysis by putting “and and and” after each cause( sort of like a timeline), as if he is trying to establish evidence by correlation and causality. It challenges what juror 8 did using circumstantial evidence (previous readings, -Hoffman). “Circumstantial evidence is never a certain proof but adding relevant details about circumstance may aid you in persuading your audience. “( Hoffman). In the case of 12 angry men, some jurors filtered what evidence according to them were more probable than others based on a given set of circumstances during the decision making process.
Mike D’Angelo makes a compelling case. Certainly while watching the movie, a viewer is taken in by the drama of the moment and compelled to believe Henry Fonda based on the overt biases of some of the other jurors. And while he casts doubt on individual pieces of evidence, taken together, D’Angelo does have a point – that is far too many coincidences.
Additionally, after reading Cialdini, you see some of his social influences at hand. The most obvious is social proof. Once Fonda was able to cast doubt on some initial evidence and turn a few jurors to his side, it started to become the prevailing trend. Other jurors turned to ‘not guilty’ as if to not be left behind. Some practically admitted they had no reason to believe he was guilty or not guilty, and seemingly went with the flow.
Fonda also seems to turn the juror fixated on the movies through consistency. By asking a series of small questions and constantly saying, ‘go back a day’ he was able to secure small commitments that eventually led him to not remember details about a movie further in the past.
I still agree that there is enough reasonable doubt to not convict, but agree with D’Angelo that the kid is probably not innocent. Just took Fonda using classing influencers to get there.
This entirely depends on the situation. In a situation like a jury, if one piece of evidence does not make sense, makes the theory of the crime not coalesce then no, the compounding of evidence does not bring you to beyond a reasonable doubt. On the other hand, when credible evidence of, say, anthropogenic climate change exists, is it reasonable to say there is a reasonable doubt. In the case of 12 Angry Men I think that not only was one piece of evidence called into questions, many were, so it was the compound nature of more and more evidence being questionable that led to the this. In my counter-example 98% of climate scientists believe that the data show that climate change is anthropogenic, there is not credible evidence to the contrary, just bloviating platitudes, in this case, the evidence speaks volumes.
I qualify this post by saying that, in a jury setting, doubt should be allowed. In other settings the confluence of mounting evidence should win over. I don’t think that I was clear on that.
D’Angelo makes a great argument but I am not convinced. As the movie unfolds and the jurors are examining the evidence, it is never certain that the boy is guilty. Much of the evidence is questionable making it hard to convict him. Yes, there are a couple of details that are suspicious but it could be coincidental.
The weapon that was used for the murder is the most important evidence in the case. However, I am reluctant to believe that the kid would’ve been able to kill his father and return to the scene so calmly. If he did kill him, wouldn’t he want to be far away from the scene to avoid being caught?
Having very fresh in my mind the idea of biases and cognitive shortcuts, I can’t help but wonder why at the end of the movie I was relieved that the boy wasn’t convicted. I experience a sense of satisfaction, which I assume came from my personal bias against the unproportional incarceration of minorities. Through the movie I had the assumption that the boy was a minority from a couple of juror’s comments against “them”, although the movie never explicitly specify who they are (another bias; the illusion of validity). Just processing it, it is alarming to realize that biases can prevent a juror from feeling remorse when making a decision that will have such an impactful outcome in someone’s life.
I found this article very interesting to read as I haven’t thought of this approach to the movie before. I had taken the movie at face value, and assumed that since they spent so much time finding reasonable doubt that the “kid” had not killed his father. Henry Fonda’s character so passionately convinced the jury that there wasn’t enough evidence to convict.
I still do not think there is enough solid evidence to convict him, but I can definitely see what the article is trying to convey. The racial bias present during this time (as someone mentioned above) also plays a large role in how this case was examined. I think that with the racial bias present during the time period most juries would have convicted him right away. This is why it was necessary to have someone like Fonda critically looking at the facts and arguments of this case and how they were presented.
D’Angelo relies heavy on the use of the deliberative argumentation technique of statistical evidence in this article. Stating that the probability of all of these pieces of evidence being untrue is very small. While I can see his point, the point of this movie and story line is to tell whether or not there is enough reasonable doubt to set this man free. I think that after all of the facts and arguments are presented, I would still say he is not guilty. He may have murdered his father, but the prosecution did not do a good enough job of proving their case with the use of undisputed evidence.
Mike D” Angelo questions some important facts about the “12 Angry Men “ whether the boy was guilty or not for killing his father. He agues that the boy should be prove guilty for killing his father. He thinks that it is not a realistic to forget about a movie that he just watch. Moreover, he lost the knives as the same day as the murder. He thinks that the boy is lying and there is no reasonable doubt about his killing. However, I still think juror 8 Fonda helped them to come up with the right decision using the reasonable doubt process. He is not connected with the murder. His process of clearing his reasonable doubt shows that the boy not guilty.
Although at beginning of the 12 Angry Men movie, eleven jurors declare the boy guilty without having any discussion, Fonda was only one who had doubt about the boy killing his father. He started conversation with other jurors to clear his doubt on this issue. At the end of the movie, he was able to convince other jurors through his power of deliberation which is an important skill for any judicial process. On the other hand, Mike do not seem to use the deliberation process. It feels that he is using the logic of timing rather than reasonable doubt to judge this case.
Although, Mike D Angelo raises question about the decision of the movie, I think overall the movie shows a perfect example how juries should work together to come up with the accurate decision for any cases. It shows the power of deliberation and how jurors can work together to avoid personal prejudices to save an innocent life.
Mike D’Angelo raised some interesting points of why the 12 angry men might have made the wrong decision. I agree with him that it is highly unlikely that so many evidences would lead to an individual’s guilt and they would be proven to be not guilty. But what I believe played the most important role in the 12 men ruling that that kid was not guilty, was the simple fact that they evaluated each evidence presented. It is possible that everything the prosecutor said happen did happen, and it is also likely that the way the jury analyzed the situation surrounding the evidence was what actually happened. I feel that from a realistic stand point most people would believe that the child Is not guilty because of the arguments presented to support that he is not guilty versus believing that the child is guilty simply because they are too many evidence pointing that he is but no one is defending the evidence and using it to persuade them to believe that he is guilty. Our gut instinct can tell you one thing but in court you won’t make a ruling because that’s what you feel is right. You will rule according to the evidence presenting and what seems more plausible.
Insensitivity aside, Mike D’Angelo’s argument is somewhat helpful as it puts into question a popular – and possibly unchecked — interpretation of “12 Angry Men” that many viewers hold. In essence, D’Angelo challenges a similar behavior that Reginald Rose also challenged by writing the telepathy/film script of this film, which is to say, both individuals pressure the audience into thinking about an scenario in a more nuanced way.
D’Angelo’s claim that the combined weight of evidence creates a problem is warranted, in my opinion, because the jurors do not evenly weigh the option of someone else committing the murder – they only focus on The Kid not committing the murder. Of course this is a contentious issue, and it raises the question: how do we assess justice? As the jurors came to a reasonable doubt, they could in good faith say that they didn’t fully belief that The Kid committed this crime. D’Angelo states that The Kid is “almost certainly guilty” and that the jurors’ “instincts were sound”, but choices to neglect how a doubt overrides an impulse, a preconceived notion, or a feeling. These appeals to emotion are not rooted in consistent logic and therefore should checked for validity.
Furthermore, I believe D’Angelo has a warped understanding of this film. “12 Angry Men” functions as an archetype, which is a genre characterized by realism that is diluted and serves to make universal claims rather than detail specific instances. For example, since the characters don’t have names and the jurors fulfill common stereotypes of the time, viewers can recognize more universal ideas. As I believe this is the case, D’Angelo misses the point of this film. He instead attempts to poke holes in a story that is bigger than an average court case. This approach to the film is unproductive and I do not take D’Angelo’s too seriously as he smugly tries to chop down a tree in the forest.
We just don’t have enough information.
Although one cannot examine each piece of evidence in a vacuum , in this case there is sufficient room for reasonable doubt.
It has happened in the past. A lousy detective team, or a corrupt one, and/or a inferior than average defense attorney can make a huge difference one way or another.
Because of the scarce evidence at hand and the subjective way we are receiving it, along with the fact that we are talking about a drama and our human nature is to solve the case, I can see how one may be tempted to interpret the kid as guilty. The fact of the matter is that we do not know for sure.
What was the result of investigations before DNA evidence existed? One can surely say, they were far less accurate than they are nowadays.
How about some police shootings of unarmed victims before portable video recorder technologies? One was forced to make a decision with far less evidence.
I don’t agree with the statement because it assumes the jurors, witnesses and all other parties are more or less free from biases, when in fact there are well documented cases showing that the judicial system has been historically biased towards minorities in general, especially people of color, the poor and immigrants.
I agree with Mike D’Angelo’s assessment that the combined weight of the evidence leaves no room for doubt. When the evidence is looked at as a whole sequentially, it immediately paints a clearer picture in the jury’s mind and allows them to formulate the right questions for deliberation. It also establishes a pattern of improbability that would cause the jurors to question the reliability and premise of the defense and account of witnesses.
In his article for the AV Club, Mike D’Angelo makes a powerful case that the jury in 12 Angry Men ultimately let a murderer off the hook. Essentially, he argues that evidence does not exist in a vacuum and that the odds of every piece of evidence brought forth by the prosecution of being faulty are about as likely as winning the lottery. Either it’s an extraordinary coincidence that every piece of evidence against the kid was faulty or there was a conspiracy at work to frame the kid as guilty. As a real world comparison to this case, D’Angelo puts forth the OJ trial, where the cops really did plant evidence in the hope of getting a guilty conviction. As sympathetic to this argument as I am; however, I can understand the film jury’s decision to ultimately vote not guilty. The testimonial evidence from the elderly neighbor and the woman across the street should have never been admissible to begin with as the reasonable doubt inherent in their testimony should have been obvious to the prosecution. That the only piece of physical evidence, the knife, was called into doubt as well suggests that there is at least a possibility that something else has happened here. Not to be overly speculative, but given the film’s portrayal of the defendant’s minority “otherness” it is not unreasonable to think that the entire prosecution and it’s selected testimonial evidence was biased against the kid much in the same way that the OJ prosecution was seen by the jury as biased. As Juror 10 clearly demonstrates, the influx of Puerto Ricans into New York at the time was not a welcome development for every New Yorker. Again, I recognize that within the context of the film it is unlikely that this is the case, but given that the jury votes based on their belief that there is a degree of reasonable doubt in the prosecution’s case , it is understandable to see why they voted the way they did. Also, it would be worth noting that as unlikely as it is that each piece of evidence was incorrect, sometimes strange coincidences occur (especially in the movies).