Bias In Twelve Angry Men (Film) Essay

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.

During the time Reginald Rose wrote the play Twelve Angry Men America was not an equal place for all people. A democracy is founded on the ideology that all Americans should be given a fair trial in court before being declared guilty. The twelve jurors in the play come from various backgrounds but initially, all but one vote in favor of the boy’s unforgivable sentence; while two other jurors lift two strong social stigmas and overcome their bias. One juror decided to stand up and take the time out for proper reasoning that resulted in teaching the others two jurors a lesson. Final verdicts should be made on justifiable grounds or the foundation of America’s society could be left at risk for collapse. Justifiable final verdicts are skewed

Indeed, Juror 3 and 8 have individual outlooks on the case, but I believe that even between these two diverse people, there are is one strong similarity, and that would have to be persistency. In the whole play, the strongest collisions of disputes were between Juror 3 and 8. Their conflicting perspectives and powerful determinations were what drove the decision of the fate of the accused. In general, these two jurors have strong point of views on how the boy should be treated and why. Even with this similarity, they still use their persistency in diverse

A boy may die,” and changes his vote to “not guilty” which is another instance where the boy gets a fair trial. The 12th and 7th juror find it difficult to decide on which way to vote and therefore vote “not guilty” so that the boy is not “sent off to die.” The 12th juror’s lack of a defined and consistent point of view reflects America’s post war materialism. The 4th juror believed that the defendant was guilty for most of the play but then was the 2nd last juror to change his vote and admitted that he had a “reasonable doubt.” Although the audience never finds out whether the defendant was “guilty” or “not guilty” the jurors give the “kid from the slums” an honest trial.

Juror 8 had many chances to change his opinion about the boy’s case, and yet he never did. Throughout this whole play, Juror 8 stood his ground and was

With this prejudice, the juror was putting a boy’s life at risk. Instead of seeing an innocent boy, he saw his son, and this was prejudice, blinding him. With no real points to defend why the boy is guilty, the juror was reminded that the boy on trial was not his son. “‘It’s not your

Justice is the most important theme throughout this play. It proves that truth can’t be found without a struggle. In the play there was only one juror wanting to hear all the evidence in the court case. But when more facts were found out then some of the other jurors wanted to hear the rest of it, which would determine whether the defendant was guilty or not guilty. No one really knew if the boy was guilty but or not but they figured out that he was not given a fair trial. The defence barrister didn’t care because he wasn’t getting paid enough money to care. So that’s what the jurors thought it was up to them then, to repay the boy with justice.

Throughout the play the character of juror 3 had shown the audience many types of prejudice that he represented it in different ways of actions that happened with him in his own life. Furthermore, juror 3 had played his role during the play as a guy who's rigid in his opinions and not used to having people disagree with him. Even before the jury has started talking "Six days. [the judges] should have finished it in two. [Slapping back of one hand into palm of the other.] Talk! Talk! Talk! [Gets up and starts for water cooler.] Did [to the other jurors in the jury room] ever hear so much talk about nothing?" additionally, in his mind, it's totally clear that the defendant

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.

The play 12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose takes place in 1957, where a trial about a boy stabbing his father is charged with first degree charges, facing execution. 12 jurors, all with different personalities and backgrounds are settled to discuss the future of the boy; declaring not guilty will release him from his charges and vice versa. However, evidence alone wasn’t the only pieces that could convince other jurors. And though it seems mandatory that the jurors would argue and debate among each other, biases about the boy were the main attention, focusing more so on that rather than evidence. Juror 10 becomes the best example of having biases and grudges towards the boy, as he continues throughout the movie to get others to realize what he’s trying to claim, playing a vital role and although juror 10’s motives doesn’t change, he acts as a

Including from their own lives each juror has gone through a point in time were even they were stereotyped by the world. The jury has been convinced that the boy has been severely stereotyped through the whole case and court. The 3rd juror let the case come into his own life and he made his own opinion on the boy without even paying attention to detail, he reflected his own life in his argument with stereotypes (72). The lives of the jurors have all been affected by the acts of stereotyping and see the effects of it that can have on someone. A boy that at the beginning almost lost his life due to the people just looking at him was saved by the fact that the jury looked past all that.

In the play Twelve Angry Men, Reginald Rose shows that prejudices can prevent jurors from seeing the truth. This is evident throughout the play as juror 10 blinded to the facts because prejudice clouds his judgement. However, besides prejudice, Rose also show personal bias, ignorance and a weak characteristic can take away jurors’ abilities to see the truth. For instance, juror 3’s bad relationship with his son in the past and juror7’s ignorant attitude towards the case ultimately affect their perspective about the facts and evidence presented in the case. As a result, these factors not only obscure the truth but also make it hard for the jury to reach a just verdict and

The jury that is chosen for the case all come from very different pasts, and most of them have completely different morals and values. The clash of these different views and discussing the case reveal past experiences and prejudices that some of the men have. The dynamic between past experience and prejudices fuels their arguments, but they are challenged throughout the play. Some of them had prejudices against people who live in the slums and prejudices against teenagers.

Several of the jurors are shown to have serious personal biases that interfere with their ability to objectively look at the evidence of the case. The most prominent example is Juror no. 10, a garage owner, who from the very beginning is shown to be bigoted towards people from the slums. One of his first lines, in response to Juror

This play is about twelve jurors who are to decide the verdict of a 19 year old boy who is accused of killing his father. The jurors go into a room with the foreman to talk about the case and decide on a verdict. The vote has to be unanimous either guilty or not guilty for the case to end. To start the deciding, the jurors decide to take a preliminary vote to see where they stand. After counting the ballots the vote is 11 to 1, guilty. Juror number eight is the one who votes not guilty. The reason that juror eight voted not guilty was because he was not sure that the boy was guilty and he wanted to talk about it. One of the jurors decided to take a minute for each juror to tell their side of the story and what they