In the 1957 film 12 Angry Men, a group of jurors is surprised to discover that one juror does not immediately wish to convict a young man accused of murdering his father. The lone dissenting juror pleads and argues with the other jurors over the course of their deliberations, using a variety of persuasive techniques to instill some sense of doubt about the guilt of the accused. As other jurors began to have their own doubts, they join in and provide both rational and emotional appeals to persuade the remaining jurors to change their minds. The interactions between the jurors reveal that no one approach, purely logical or purely emotional, will work for all jurors, and in fact some of their decisions seem to be based less on the case itself and more on their responses to their fellow jurors. By the end of the deliberations, the ratio has been reversed so that now the lone dissenting juror is one who wants a guilty verdict. Under enormous psychological pressure, he breaks down and changes his vote, so that the jury eventually reaches a consensus of not guilty.
As the movie opens, it becomes clear that the jurors have been taught what to think about the case by the legal system. The opening shot shows the exterior of the courtroom with massive columns, the camera panning upward to show the immense height and solidity of the building as a whole. It seems impenetrable, a symbol of the justice system which seems to many something fixed and immoveable, and which they cannot understand nor defeat. This shot establishes the legal system as the authority that the jurors are to heed. This symbolism is reinforced by the instructions of the judge, who directs the jurors about the case they have just heard. His remarks about them possibly finding a reasonable doubt sound bored, as if he is reciting this information solely in a pro forma way; it is clear from his tone that he expects them to find the defendant guilty.
Although it is not shown in the film, the judge provides an account of how the jurors have been taught what to think. He remarks that they have listened to the prosecution and the defense make their respective cases and notes that they have heard a great deal of testimony. He implies that the prosecution has explained to them the significance of the various pieces of evidence and testimony introduced in the case. Their role throughout the trial itself has been passive: they have been required to be silent, passive observers of the trial who have been told what the evidence is, why it is important, and how they should interpret it. It is somewhat ironic, then, that having been treated as silent observers who have no active role in the trial, they now are thrust into their lone chance to become active participants in the legal system by deciding the fate of the young man accused of murdering his father. Especially ironic is the judge’s admonition that if they find the young man guilty, he will receive a death sentence. Thus, after long days of being allowed only to listen and watch, and not being allowed to ask their own questions, they now hold the power of life and death over the defendant.
In any trial, jurors have preconceived notions about the participants. Although not specifically addressed in the film, the most common preconceived notion that jurors have is that if someone has been arrested for a crime and brought to trial, then that person must be guilty. Because of this preconceived notion, trial judges as well as the defense attorneys are supposed to remind the jury of the presumption of innocence. At one point in the arguments between the jurors, one juror makes a comment that he knew the defendant was guilty from the first day of the trial. In response, Juror #8, the juror who initially votes not guilty, reminds him that they are supposed to proceed from a viewpoint of presuming innocence, and that it is the burden of the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. From a psychological perspective, this argument is an uphill battle simply because it is human nature to believe that someone accused of a crime must have done something wrong, or else there would have been no accusation. By reminding the others that they are to presume innocence, Juror #8 is asking them to suppress their preconceived notions of guilt and rely instead of reason and empathy for the defendant to ask if there is a reasonable doubt as to his guilt.
Other jurors also reveal some preconceived notions. For example, Juror #10 reveals himself to be completely bigoted, asserting that all slum inhabitants (primarily Puerto Ricans in this setting) are no good, prone to violence, and not to be trusted. Throughout the film, his bigoted remarks increase in intensity, until his final rant on the subject alienates the other jurors so that they leave the table to get away from him. From Juror #10’s perspective, the defendant’s ethnicity and national origin mean that he is automatically guilty and his story of having been elsewhere when his father was murdered is automatically a lie. When another juror questions why he believes the testimony of the woman, also a slum inhabitant, who supposedly saw the murder, but not the defendant, Juror #10 cannot rationally explain his conclusions. His thinking contains a logical fallacy; if all slum inhabitants lie, then both the defendant and the witnesses have lied and none of their testimony is true, including the testimony that the woman saw the murder across the street, while looking through the windows of an elevated train.
Several of the jurors initially display an inability or unwillingness to accept or explore opposing points of view. Juror # 7 quickly reveals himself to be completely unwilling to accept the idea that the defendant might not be guilty, but his conviction seems to stem more from his desire to finish the jury deliberations quickly so he can attend a baseball game than any conviction based on the actual merits of the case. For most of the film, he tries to shut down any attempt to discuss the facts of the case or whether a different interpretation of the testimony might be correct. Other jurors show this same tendency. Initially, all of the jurors except Juror #8 seem shocked that anyone would vote not guilty; they are reluctant to discuss the case at all and simply want to vote guilty and go home. Throughout the discussions of various points of testimony, this inability to accept or explore opposing points of view continues. Juror #8 walks the jury through the testimony of both the downstairs neighbor who heard threats made and the sound of the body hitting the floor, and the testimony of the women who supposedly saw the murder through the window. Juror #8 points out the testimony of two witnesses conflicts with each other because if the elevated train was going past while the woman saw the murder, then the neighbor would not have been able to hear any argument clearly enough to identify the voice. He also refutes the prosecution’s claim that the supposedly unique murder weapon must have been the same weapon that the defendant had bought, by bringing out an identical knife he had bought himself the preceding night. While a few of the jurors then take these points into consideration, some of the jurors, especially Jurors # 3 and 10, simply disregard these points because they do not fit in with the decision they have already reached about the defendant’s guilt. Instead, they begin to claim that these points are not important. They have made up their minds already, and will not listen to an opposing point of view. The reasons for their inability to do so are different. Juror #3 is the most psychologically stressed of the jurors because of his own fractured relationship with his son, whom he has not seen in over two years. He projects his bad feelings about his son onto the defendant, using him as a surrogate object of his anger at being deserted by his son. Juror $10, on the other hand, has no personal animosity but his bigotry destroys his willingness to listen to any viewpoint that differs from his. In his view, the defendant is a Puerto Rican and therefore guilty, no matter how weak the evidence might be against him or how strong the evidence might be supporting his innocence.
Similarly, many of the jurors allow emotions to control their judgments. Juror #8, who first votes not guilty, proceeds initially not from doubts about the evidence but from his own reluctance to be responsible for sentencing a young man to death. He pleads with the other jurors to at least take the time to discuss the case before making up their minds. Several times he states that he does not know if the defendant is innocent, but asserts that it is at least possible. He appeals to their sense of sympathy by pointing out repeatedly that the defendant had been physically abused by his father throughout his life. It almost seems for a while that for this juror, he could be inclined to vote not guilty even if he were convinced the defendant killed his father, because he feels that the boy had been abused for so long that the father may have deserved his death.
In the same way, later in the film, some of the jurors seem to change their votes because of their growing dislike of Juror #10. When Juror #10 begins his final bigoted rant about people who live in slums, the film deliberately shows each juror moving away from the table in disgust. It seems clear that they are changing their minds, but not necessarily because they believe the factual arguments that have been made in favor of the defendant’s lack of guilt, but because they are so disgusted with Juror #10 that they do not want to be on the same side as him. This incident mirrors an earlier exchange when one juror had made disparaging comments about Juror # 9, an elderly man. Another juror is outraged at the lack of respect shown to the older juror and threatens to beat up the juror if that level of disrespect continues. Through these interactions, the jurors demonstrate that their actions and decisions are based not so much on facts and evidence but on their emotional responses to the events that are transpiring. They react to the personalities of each other instead of strictly analyzing and discussing the facts of the case. In a pointed opposition to this tendency is the behavior of Juror #4, who maintains a calm and collected demeanor through most of the film and emphasizes repeatedly what the facts are. His emphasis on reason and facts serves as a distinct counterpoint to the behavior of most of the group, who allow their emotions to influence and at times determine their judgment.
Beginning fairly early in the film, both Juror #8 and Juror # 9 serve to find the weak points in the arguments put forth both in the trial and in the jury deliberations. Juror #8 begins the process by challenging the idea that the murder weapon has a unique design. After requesting that the murder weapon be brought into the jury room for examination, he produces an identical knife to show that just because the defendant had bought a similar knife, it does not mean that the one the defendant bought is the same exact knife used to kill his father. This scene is both dramatic and unusual. In a normal trial and jury deliberations, one would expect the defense attorney to have addressed this point and for it not to be an issue with the jury; nor would one expect a juror to be so invested in the case that he conducts his own search for a similar knife. To address this issue, Juror #8 points out that the defense attorney was a court-appointed attorney who receives little compensation for his work and who may not have believed his client enough to prepare adequately for the trial. When he makes these comments about the defense attorney, Juror #8 also subtly plants the seed in the minds of the other jurors that maybe the reason some of the other testimony went unchallenged was because the defense attorney was not motivated enough to care or because he was inexperienced.
Juror #9, the elderly man, also points out the weaknesses in the evidence. When discussing the evidence of the older man who claimed to hear the argument between the defendant and his father, Juror #9 recounts his observations of the witness, who he describes as lonely, wearing clothes that need mending (indicating he has nobody who cares much about him), and unimportant. Juror #9 conducts essentially a psychological assessment of the witness, depicting him as someone who has always been a “nobody” and who has never been the center of attention before and never been quoted. Juror #9 explains that in his view, the old man began to believe his own story because it made him important. He would be quoted in the newspaper; reporters would interview him; he would be an important witness in a murder trial. Juror #9 casts enough doubt on the old man’s motivations for his testimony that the testimony itself becomes suspect.
Juror #8 also breaks down another argument about the old man who was a witness. Using the facts they had all observed in court, that this man walked with a pronounced limp because of an apparent recent stroke, Juror #8 shows discrepancies in the old man’s testimony. Using the floor plan of the man’s apartment and the stairs outside his apartment, he demonstrates how long it would take to walk from the bedroom through the apartment and to the landing, where he supposedly saw the defendant running down the stairs. According to the old man, it took him roughly 15 seconds from the time he heard the body hit the floor to get to the staircase landing in time to see the defendant clearly enough to identify him. Yet, when Juror #8 walks through the steps it would have taken to do so, the time is almost three times what the old man claimed. Therefore, if it took him that long to get to the landing, he would not have seen the face clearly of the person running down the stairs and so his identification of the defendant is not reliable.
Juror #9 also finds another weakness in the argument against the defendant. Juror #4, who relies more on facts and reason than the other jurors, notes that in spite of the other evidence not necessarily being solid, the evidence of the woman who saw the murder remains undisputed. Juror #9 sees Juror #4 rubbing his nose after temporarily removing his glasses, and Juror #9 questions him about his glasses and rubbing his nose. Juror #9 points out that the woman who saw the murder also rubbed her nose and had the same indentations on her nose that are typical of people who wear glasses. During the discussion, it becomes clear that some jurors believe the woman might have normally worn glasses, but she would not have been wearing them while in her bed, from which she supposedly saw the murder through her window, the windows of the elevated train, and the window of the apartment across the street. By pointing out the physical near-impossibility of someone presumably nearsighted enough to need glasses being able to see 50 to 60 feet without glasses, Juror #8 and Juror #9 convince Juror #4 that her testimony is unreliable. This type of fact-based supposition appeals to the rational side of Juror #4 sufficiently that he now also has a reasonable doubt about the defendant’s guilt and so changes his vote.
Juror #8 excels at providing supporting evidence that disintegrates the prevailing beliefs of the other jurors. The first example of this is when he produces a knife identical to the murder weapon. Prior to that point the jurors had been obsessing over the evidence they heard that the murder weapon had a unique design and so the knife the defendant had purchased must be the murder weapon, despite the defendant’s claim that he had lost the knife. The jurors dismiss the idea as ludicrous that the defendant would lose the knife and coincidentally the exact same knife would be picked up by someone else and used to murder the defendant’s father. They seem at an impasse because they are convinced the murder weapon is a unique design, one of a kind. Therefore, when Juror #8 pulls out the knife he purchased the previous evening, and it proves identical as he stabs it into the table next to the actual murder weapon, the knife is a very physical manifestation of doubt about the evidence.
Juror #8 is also the juror who requests the floor plan diagram of the old man’s apartment. He gets the other jurors to examine the floor plan carefully, noting the dimensions of the rooms and how far away the bedroom is from the apartment entrance and the stairwell. He asks them to estimate how long it would take for the man to walk this amount of space. He shows them how slowly the man would walk because of his limp, which forces him to drag one leg. He then walks the same number of feet the old man would have had to walk to go from his bedroom to the stairwell, asking another juror to use his stopwatch to time him. This demonstration visibly shows how much longer it would have taken the old man do walk that far than the amount of time the old man had claimed. This discrepancy casts doubt on the old man’s testimony. This increasing doubt makes the other jurors question their own conclusions. Both Juror #8 and #9 also show good psychological insight. They do not attack the witnesses as deliberately lying about what they saw or heard. Juror #9 gives a convincing explanation that the old man feels so neglected and alone that he has convinced himself his story is true so that he will get attention from others. They also suppose that the woman who normally wore glasses might have omitted to wear them to court because she wanted to look more attractive, instead of attacking her as having deliberately chosen not to wear glasses to court because someone might question if her sight was good enough when in bed without wearing glasses to really see what she claimed to have seen. Because Jurors #8 and 9 do not personally attack the witnesses, it makes their claims about the testimony easier for the other jurors to accept.
Many of the jurors experience difficulty discerning facts from supposition. For example, there is the testimony about the knife. Obviously there was no testimony that the knife was in fact one of a kind, because there is no factual basis for such a statement unless the prosecution could bring in the knife manufacturer to attest to that statement. The prosecution had simply presented witnesses who claimed that they had never seen a similar knife. That testimony supposed that because they had never seen similar knives, no such other knives existed. But instead of treating this testimony as supposition, most of the jurors accepted it as proven fact. That is why they addressed it so much early in the film, because in their minds, the uniqueness of the murder weapon was a proven fact. When Juror #8 was able to produce an identical knife, the other jurors realized that what they had taken for fact was actually supposition. In the same way, they had accepted the old man’s testimony about how long it took for him to walk from his bedroom to the landing as fact, instead of realizing that he was simply guessing how long it took him to walk that far. Again, not until Juror #8 provides a physical demonstration that contradicts this assertion do the jurors realize that the amount of time was supposition rather than fact.
Jurors #8 and #3 use emotions to control the environment in different ways. Juror #8 tries to use sympathy and a sense of fair play to sway the votes of the other jurors. He succeeds initially in at least convincing them to discuss the case, by pointing out that if they vote guilty without even thinking about the merits of the case, they are condemning a man to death. By making the point that such a decision deserves more than just a rubber stamp approval, he appeals to their sympathy and goes so far as to ask one juror what he would want the jury to do if he were the one on trial. Juror #3, on the other hand, uses his anger as a way to control the environment in the room. He frequently gets loud and in the faces of other jurors; he intimidates the juror who is a timid bank clerk. He obviously hopes to dominate the entire room through his anger and force of personality. However, his anger is also his biggest weakness and at the end it undoes him. When he finally tears up the picture of him and his son together, that destruction seems to symbolize the destruction of life he is willing to inflict on the defendant. The destruction of the photograph breaks him down emotionally, and he sobs out of control, finally changing his vote to not guilty.
Finally some of the jurors have more ease than others with exploring questions and situations that oppose their own views and conclusions. Juror #8 is the most obvious example of this ability. From the first, he makes it clear that he is not proceeding from a conviction that the defendant is innocent, but that he wants to entertain the possibility of innocence and try to reach a balanced conclusion. At the opposite end of the spectrum is Juror #12, who seems to have no real views of his own and simply goes along with the majority opinion, to the point that he changes his mind more than once. The juror who grew up in the slums himself, Juror #5, seems at ease with having his own viewpoint but also being willing to consider what it would be like to be a young man in the defendant’s position, even though this juror initially votes guilty. For most of the jurors, it takes a combination of emotional appeal and rational appeal before they are willing to admit that their initial views and conclusions might have been wrong, and that they need to consider the alternatives.
Overall, the film depicts a major change in viewpoint caused by one juror using different persuasive techniques to get the other jurors to listen to him and then accept his viewpoint. It is a struggle at first, but slowly the other jurors begin to question their own snap judgments and consider alternative ideas. The way the jury room is filmed, showing the men crowded into a confined space with no air conditioning, reflects that they are trapped in a narrow mindset. When the rain finally comes, it symbolizes the release of the oppression that has kept them trapped in their own views.
Works Cited
Fonda, Henry & Reginald Rose (Producers), & Lumet, Sidney (Director), (1957). 12 Angry Men [Motion picture]. United States: MGM Studios.
