Many people, regardless of their own race, have preconceived notions of individuals that are charged with a criminal offense. Much of these preconceptions are fueled by the media, especially when these cases involve a white victim and minority perpetrator or vice versa. The media tends to glamorize and indulge these types of crimes because they equate to good ratings. Often times this media coverage finds its way into the courtroom and can have a negative effect on the victim, defendant, society, or all three. Arguments Surrounding Ethnicity-Based Jury Nullification The use of ethnicity-based jury nullification is a controversial topic within the judicial system.
The beginning of the movie demonstrated the effect of the normative influence of the jurors when they were voting publicly, which the majority of them voted “guilty”, it could be due to the reason of group pressure and wanted to be liked by others if their decisions were uniformed even thought they might privately disagreed. Therefore it could be explained by the vote differed when voting secretly and openly. In addition most of the jurors did not have enough arguments to support themselves, eg: when juror #7 was asked his reason behind, he looked at juror #3 and said “you tell them”. The
Citizens were thrown together into a hot, humid room to determine the guilt or innocence of a boy accused of killing his father in a moment of rage. In the film we weren’t able to observe the actual events. We were told the allegations by the jurors. We based everything mainly on the opinions which made the film so unique. I liked how we basically got inside the heads of the jurors.
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.
Reasonable doubt can be a very difficult term to understand. If a jury has any reasonable doubt that the accused may not have committed the crime, then it must enter a not guilty verdict. Each person may have their own opinion of the term reasonable doubt. In the play Twelve Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, Juror Eight stands against 11 other men, fighting to find reasonable doubt in a homicide case. The accused is a young 19 year old boy, and the victim is the young boy’s father.
Prejudice and Stereotyping Twelve Angry Men shows that prejudice can be a dangerous thing. When they first enter the jury-room, many jurors are ready to convict the defendant, not just on the evidence and arguments presented by the prosecution but, frighteningly, because the boy is a member of a social group for whom the jury hold no respect, for whom the stereotypes are of hopeless lives and criminal behaviours. As 4th puts it, ‘slums are breeding grounds for criminals’ (p.12) and 10th adds, ‘the kids who crawl outa those places are real trash’ (p.12). While there may be statistical or subjective justifications for some of these opinions, there is little evidence to show that the opinions explain this particular murder. Certainly the
The film presents the story so that Juror 8 would have to persuade the rest of the jurors to choose not guilty. But I believe what happened in the room is that each of the jurors persuaded each other but it was through Juror 8 that they were able to exercise their critical thinking skills. The jury was convinced that the defendant was guilty based on solid evidence that was resented. They took the case at face value and did not bother to question the time frame and events that happened were plausible. The other jurors neglected the details in the story and that is what made Juror 8 stand out from the rest.
The film “Twelve Angry Men” is a very interesting and captivating one. This film features twelve jurors who are middle-aged men. A young boy is on trial for the murder of his father and these jurors are faced with the responsibility of deciding whether or not he is guilty. However, the room that they deliberate in is very uncomfortable and hot. As they deliberate they are weighing the facts to ensure that they come up with a unanimous decision.
This might have been a tactic used in the film but it is something that I noticed. The final norm I wanted to mention was the way the group initially viewed the man that first had reasonable doubt. They thought that he was crazy and they were frustrated that he protested what they thought to be a unanimous verdict of guilty. 2. One role I noticed was that of a procedural technician and this was carried out by the head of the jury.
Will the jury be composed of my peers? All you can do is have faith in the current jury system, which can at times be seem to be against you. In Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men, all of these issues come up and influence the end verdict. Biases come from many places. Newspapers, television, personal beliefs, internet, almost anywhere you can think of.