Twelve Angry Men clearly communicates that people bring personal baggage into the jury room despite being charged with making an important decision. As the film showed, many do not wish to perform jury service or may feel they have somewhere more important to be, even if it is just a baseball game. In the context of murder, these concerns are minimal but reveal the individual’s values.
As a juror on a number of cases, I can state that the voting as portrayed does indeed happen in the jury room. The film’s presentation of a quick, public vote to determine any unanimity, followed by discussion, then another private vote rang true. These discussions revealed who the more difficult jurors to persuade might be, their reasoning, and the emotional bias affecting their decisions. The anonymous count freed the jurors from being put on the spot by admitting to an unpopular decision, or from being seen as going along with the majority opinion. It was wise to go in juror number order to allow for all to participate in light of some very strong and impatient personalities. This also made for great dramatic tension! Although I have not observed any reversals as extreme as one that was portrayed, I have seen jurors persuaded by others on the jury.
In my experience, the jury foremen have generally been appointed by the judge to “lead” the jury based on their level of occupational leadership. Some may volunteer, others get the job because they sat in the wrong chair although all ultimately accept the responsibility with a measure of free will. People who understand people tend to accept this role because they can be relied upon to facilitate and keep order. The film does not confuse this type of organizational leadership with moral leadership, the ability to discern right from wrong. In this case, both types of leadership are needed and there are two characters to represent both types. Order is needed so that the required reasonable doubt can emerge. This doubt can emerge only if the evidence can be discussed with some measure of thoughtfulness and care, and, as the film progresses, more jurors describe the circumstances shaping their thoughts and leading to their votes.
I believe that juries function because of the real life experiences of the jurors. Their experience provides different perspectives through which the law is understood by society. Some believe it is dangerous to give this measure of power to regular people. This position is understandable up to point, and, as we saw, most of the jurors were in hasty agreement at the start of the film. Yet only two of the jurors had real hatred in their hearts. The story clearly defines these two different types of hatred well– one is broad and one is personal– and at the conclusion separates the respective types of hatred from the decisions that needed to be made.
Twelve jury men composed by a judge in New York city court law room in a play setting was tasked to deliberate on a murder case involving an accused if found guikty, would receive a mandatory death sentence. One could tell the mood of the twelve jurors was that of anger and state of restlessness to dispatch the case in less time so they could go about their businesses. They were presented with some facts about the case and some of these facts inckude: a woman who lived across the street testified that she saw the boy in this case the defendant kill his bilogical father. According to this woman she saw the boy through her window of a passing elevated train. The boy’s father had earlier hit him at least twice after an argument with the father. According to juror 3 who owns a business and had a bad relationship with his own son relate to the boy’s past brash with the law including trying to slash another teenager with a knife. 8th juror is the only one who votes ‘not guilty’ at the first vote (11-1). He is discontent with the way the trial was handled and proposes that they discuss the evidence presented so they don’t convict an innocent young man. He was met with opposition from the other jurirs. He was the chief advocate for the young man and a firm believer in rule of law and the presumption of innocence till proven guilty. Through his potent and consistent query to all questions he was able to change the vote once again to three other jurors agreeing with him to change their vote to “not guilty”. He also tried to prove or provide further argument to doubt the old man’s evidence that he heard from upstairs a fight and shouting “I will kill you ” and a body hitting the floor. He saw the boy running down the stairs. Meanwhile, the boy claimed he had an alibi since he was at the movies even though he doesn’t remember the title of the movie. Juror 10 is one hard line attackers of the defendant and has fascist tendencies towards the boy. His dislike for the defendant started right from the jury room. Juror 11 is a German immigrant watchmaker he believes in the American justice system. He listens to argument from all sides and tries to make a switch from his earlier stands of guilty to not guilty. The 9th juror questions the eye witness testimony of the woman living across the street, she wore glasses but chose not to wear them in court. Was she wearing them whiles laying in bed when she saw the murder through her window? This was hard to believe and also led to other jurors having doubts in their minds. Finally, the juror reached a verdict of not guilty and now leaves the courtroom.