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.
In the film 12 Angry Men there was only one juror who initially showed critical thinking in his evaluation of the trial. This juror was Juror Number 8. In my opinion, when the story first opened Juror 8 chose ‘not guilty’ because he was unconvinced that the defendant was guilty. However he was also unsure that the defendant was ‘not guilty.’ Because of his uncertainty, Juror 8 had to really on critical thinking skills to get answers and solidify his decision. The film presents the story so that Juror 8 would have to persuade the rest of the jurors to choose not guilty.
In March of this year, Ruben Castaneda wrote an article for the Washington Post about an incident that occurred in February of the same year. In February, a man by the name of Harold J. Stewart was prosecuted under the suspicion of murder in Montgomery, Georgia. He was accused of beating a man who was sleeping to death with a baseball bat. Like Colin Ferguson, Stewart decided that he would be a pro se defendant. His reason- he felt that they were not giving him the rights he deserved by denying him access to the law library and the state Attorney Grievance Commission.
As I walk into the room and take my seat, I become aware of the other jurors appearing relaxed and confident of the certain vote “guilty”. No discussion takes place and when the foreman calls the vote, one by one the jurors start to raise their hands to vote “guilty”. As the other jurors start to realise that only 11 people have raised their hands, I raise my own hand and clearly state “not guilty”. Despite this, I am not sure if the boy is guilty or not; I just do not think it is right to send the boy to the chair without talking about it first. Evil eyes begin to focus on me and the atmosphere suddenly turned hostile.
The cops suspected to be Ruben “Hurricane” Carter, champion boxer and a 19 year old college student named John Artis as they were two black males driving around town at such a late hour. These men were framed guilty in what is known to be one of the most horrifying miscarriages of justice in modern day society. Artis and Carter were taken to the hospital to be identified by victim Willie Marins. Marins claimed that neither Carter nor Artis were one of the shooters. Even so, both suspects were taken to police headquarters and questioned.
Walter tries to push forward the question “Should youth be trialled as adults?” to make the audience consider whether it is correct to hold minors in an adult prison and fact is that the USA Justice System incarcerates more youth than any other country in the world. This was found on (eji.org.eji.com). Steve Harmon is a 16 year old boy on trial for felony murder and he gets sent to an adult prison which is what Walter is trying to get us to think about, Whether it’s fair if Steve or any other minor should be in an adult prison at 16 years of age. The quote “The best time to cry is at night” that Walter had used at the start of the novel writing in Steve’s own words from inside the adult prison is to show the audience that it is not a nice nor safe place in there. This is because Steve was pointing out that if you made a noise in there or if anyone heard you crying they would immediately put all attention onto you as they would take you as a ‘whimp’.
Although, There was a tremendous amount of damning evidence against Pickton that the jurors deciding his fate did not hear during his year-long trial in 2007, including an allegation from a sex-trade worker that he nearly stabbed her to death. A series of behind-the-scenes legal rulings meant explosive Crown evidence was kept from the jury, which ultimately found Pickton not guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of six women, but guilty of the lesser charge of second-degree murder. Whether the six murders Pickton was convicted of committing were sex crimes was never debated during the trail, because the victim’s remains did not provide the evidence. When prosecutor Michael Petire told the jury at the end of the prosecution‘s case on August 13, 2007 that he was “satisfied the evidence the Crown should be calling has been called, “what he surely meant was that he had called the evidence he was allowed by the law to reveal to the jury. Some of the information such as most of the evidence pertaining to the other 20 victims was held back from the jury after the judge ruled in August 2006 that Pickton should face two separate trials; the first one on six counts, and the second one on 20 counts.
Newspapers, television, personal beliefs, internet, almost anywhere you can think of. It’s impossible to get a bias-less jury. Everyone has their own biases. Some are more prevalent than others such as this statement from Juror #10, “I don’t understand you people...you know how these people lie...they don’t care......most of them, it’s like they have no feelings.” He let racism interfere with a fair trial. Is this the kind juror you’d like having judge your case?
Juror #7 is a slick, obnoxious salesman whose only concern is to get the deliberations over quickly so he can get to that evening’s baseball game. He assumes that the defendant is guilty and has no interest in discussing it. At one point he makes some prejudiced remarks about immigrants in reference to Juror #11. Juror #8 is a quiet, thoughtful man whose main concern is that justice be done. An architect by profession, he is the first juror to vote “not guilty” on the very first ballot.
He also mentioned that a large majority of juveniles were sentence to life in prison without parole and that they not even killed no one but were part of a crime. After a voting against the law he couldn’t accumulated enough supporters. Then after the extremely modest nature of Yee’s bill, this flip flopping is baffling. The law didn’t change regarding juveniles sentence to life, but what the law change was that every youth who were convicted could ask the judge to reexamine their cases after 15 years in prison. It doesn’t mean that after they will go free what it means is that the