In ‘Twelve Angry Men’, the playwright Reginald Rose presents a jury of twelve men from contrasting backgrounds that has to decide the fate of a young defendant. Rose wrote the play after being on a jury himself, and therefore wanted the audience to known about the role of the jury and the due process. In this play, the defendant plays a dominant role as without him there would be no case and hence no jury. However Rose deliberately chose not to have the defendant make a physical appearance in the play as this would influence the audience’s opinion and focus their attention on the crime rather than the conflicting jury and their objectivity. Therefore Rose introduced the audience to jurors like 3, 4 and 8 who play a significant role in exposing the Juror’s duty.
Juror #1 is the Foreman of the jury. He is serious about his role and tries to run the proceedings in an orderly fashion, reminding the jurors “Just let’s remember we’ve got a first degree murder charge here. If we vote guilty, we send the accused to the electric chair.” Juror #2 is timid, quiet and unsure of himself, finding it hard to maintain an independent opinion until he finds the courage to point out an important question about how the murder was actually committed. Juror #3 is the antagonist. He is a forceful, intolerant bully who sees the case as simple and believes the accused is absolutely guilty.
The accused is a young 19 year old boy, and the victim is the young boy’s father. When the jurors enter the Jury Room, they all think this case is open and shut – until they take the initial vote, and discover one man voted in favor of not-guilty. All the other jurors seem to think that all the evidence is laid out for them, while Juror Eight is not so sure. Juror Eight reviews all the evidence and is able to find many ways in which reasonable doubt was established. Specifically, in the testimony of the old woman, through the weapon that was used to murder the father, and finally through the testimony of the old man.
The drama’s focus is on a jury’s deliberation over a young man’s fate and the crucial role truth plays in relation to the decision. This idea is developed in the play through the actions and statements of characters like Jurors 3, 8, 10 and 11. The 8th Juror believes that a thorough examination of the evidence of the case is vital when making these deliberations. This leads him to review the case logically in order to arrive at the truth as he is trying to demonstrate that there is reasonable doubt about the boy’s guilt. The 10th Juror is prejudiced and racist against the boy and his race as well as his background.
Ricky was shot by a local rival gang, we, the audience don't know the name of the person who shot him, this tells us that the person who shot the gun isn't very important, which also tells us that anyone can murder anyone in this society. The director John Singleton uses camera, editing and soundtrack to emphasise the importance of this scene. The film “Boyz in the Hood” naturally shows this is the key scene as it also is the turning point of the film. Firstly, the way the director controls the camera is interesting. The camera helps build suspense when the main character Tre and Ricky start walking apart and Tre keeps on looking back to watchout for Ricky.
Jake builds a bridge with the audience towards the end when he starts to get emotional and cry. That shows the viewers that he is not only professionally involved with the trial but also very emotionally involved as well. Finally, the closing argument, most importantly, uses Ethos. It uses a fair, open-minded, honest, and well-informed opinion about the subject matter. Now here is a white male, defending a black father who killed two white men after raping his 7
Collectively the 11 jurors question him as to why he voted guilty. Many jurors have personal prejudice and they are not willing to accept that the boy is not guilty. However, the juror who votes not guilty in the beginning uses role-play as well as assumptions that could be made to convince the rest. One of the jurors uses facts like the lady witnessed the boy killing the father. However, later the old man convinces him with his important
"Set in the sweltering summer of 1957, Reginald Rose bases his play “12 Angry Men” on the notion that personal experience has the capacity to influence and sway our decisions. *Rose specifically amplifies this ideology as throughout the play, as a myriad of contrasting backstories are seen to be the foundation of the characters judgments. Set amongst a court case apropos to a 16 year old boy convicted of killing his father, the “reasonable doubt” underlying his conviction is explicitly supported by one Juror 8 amidst 11 others. Demonstrating the diversity of the Jurors, Rose illustrates the “2 America’s” that can be observed in the different Jurors identities. In addition the jurisprudence of America enshrines the belief that “the multitude
What was this great reason for his actions that makes this a killing not a murder and in that not be able to be sentenced to jail. Well he has told us and it is up to you the members of the jury to determine if this is a valid reason for his actions. George and only George new exactly who Lennie was and what he has done in the past. This knowledge of Lennie allowed George before anyone else to know that it was Lennie who killed Curley’s wife. Also since George knew Lennie so well he was able to know pretty much exactly what happened and why Lennie did what he did.
Admission Ticket 4 Twelve Angry Men From the movie, it was seen that the power of the testimonies given by the eyewitnesses was huge to the juries and it was suggested that a ‘vivid eyewitness account is difficult to erase from juror’s minds ( Leippe,1985) and hence more likely to result in a conviction (Visher,1987). Therefore the jurors should take the misinformation effect into account. For example, a witness heard the boy shouted “I’m going to kill ya” few hours before the father was killed, may lead the witness assumed the boy was the murderer. And also the woman who claimed to see the murder while juror #8 tried to query her reliability of not wearing any visual aids at that time. Although juror #8 was the only one who voted “not guilty” in the open ballot of the earlier scene, he was as Myers (2010) explained that a minority was most persuasive when their arguments were “consistent, persistent and self-confident”.