An Overview Of 12 Angry Men
12 Angry Men was a very popular film in the late 1950s starring Henry Fonda. A jury must decide on a murder case that holds a first degree murder conviction. A 19 year old Puerto Rican but from the inner city is on trial for the murder of his father. His father was stabbed to death with a pocket knife. The jury is instructed that a guilty verdict will lead to a mandatory death sentence and that their vote must be unanimous.
There are twelve all white, male jurors. They are placed in a small, hot room after spending four days listening to testimony during the murder trial. None of these men can relate to the defendant due to their own personal biases. Throughout the story, they address each other based on their jury numbers.
As the story unfolds, we see the jurors are very agitated. It is an uncomfortable situation. They are all worn by the six day trial and all but one of them is ready to give a guilty verdict. It is the height of the summer in New York city, where summers are particularly hot and humid. They sit in a small room without much air and the majority is ready to decide and move on with their lives.
The jurors each bring their own personal experiences and biases to the table which make coming to a unanimous decision very difficult. To most, the evidence appears to be overwhelming. Neighbors heard a fight between the son and father. During the trial, a witness said he heard the son threaten to kill his father.
According to witness testimony, they heard the father and son arguing. During that argument, someone heard the son threatened to kill his father. The pocket knife that killed the father was similar to the one they found in the teenagers possession. The facts seem to all line up and the majority of the jurors are ready to make a unanimous guilty verdict.
We begin to realize that these men are angry, fearful and culturally bias and their views are tainting the outcome of the trial. Juror 8 knows that the others may in fact carry out a miscarriage of justice if he doesn’t convince them to see past their views. He stands up for the defendant and encourages the others to take a closer look at the facts of the case.
Juror number eight, comes to the defense of the teen imploring the others to put their own personal biases aside and really examine the facts of the case. He helps them to see that all of the evidence is circumstantial. The murder weapon is a common pocket knife, that he even pulls out of his pocket.
12 Angry Men examines the American Justice system through the narrow views of jurors that are a cross section of our society. But the persistence of one man who stood up for a fair and just system ultimately saved a life. This story is a thought provoking account of the racial and legal injustices faced by those marginalized by a system that is not always fair and just.
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