...Twelve Angry Men: Justice is Served Twelve Angry Men takes you into a day in the lives of twelve jurors in a New York City courthouse. In the hands of the jurors lies the fate of a young man accused of stabbing his father. Throughout the film, the audience becomes familiar with each of the jurors and is quickly introduced to topics at issue such as discrimination, iniquitous motives, and concerns about the American judicial system. As the twelve jurors deliberate to reach a verdict, the film epitomizes the validation and condemnation of the American justice system. There are many responsibilities of a jury: to achieve fair and impartial decision, determine guilt or not guilt, give people voice in the government, and to protect the rights of the accused. In other words, the main point of the jury system is not to provide innocence but eradicating or sustaining reasonable doubt. The presumption of innocence is a key theme in the narrative that reflects one of the distinct characteristics of the American justice system. As much as this film is about lessons of discrimination, fate, and impartiality, it is also a lesson of the American justice system. Although this film demonstrates many imperfections in the court system, as imperfect human beings, perhaps it is necessary that justice call upon such a system. As shown in Twelve Angry Men, the American justice system, although seemingly flawed, works for us imperfect human beings Aside from the opening courtroom scene where...
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...One of the strengths of ‘twelve angry men’ is rose’s ability to create a diverse case of characters with very different values and interests. Do you agree? Set in 1950’s America, Reginald Rose’s play, Twelve Angry Men, revolves around twelve men summoned to decide the fate of a young man’s life. Taking place in a New York courtroom, it follows the deliberations of the jurors as they attempt to make a unanimous verdict as to whether or not a sixteen year old is in fact guilty of murdering his father. Throughout the play, rose demonstrates the prejudice that obstructs the course of justice, and the diversity in beliefs and principals that separate jurors from each other. Together the jurors represent the microcosm that is American Society. For the duration of the text, each juror is only identified by a number with no evidence to suggest that they even know each other’s' names. The jury however, is a cross-section of American society as it comprises of educated, old, working-class, business and even immigrant men. This is intended by the play as the value of each juror is as a social representation, not as individuals. The 8th Juror represents possible strengths of the jury system as an aspect of the legal system. This is demonstrated by his confidence and the fact that he does not fear the idea of 'stand alone' against a potentially unanimous 'guilty' verdict, as he eventually encourages other jurors that a ‘young man's life’ is worth some discussion. Thus, through the role...
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...1 Twelve Angry Men: An Analysis of Group Effectiveness The Infrareds Ruth Bradner, Penelope McFarline, Michelle McGregor, Jonathon West VCU ADLT 612 Dr. Terry Carter, Professor 2 Twelve Angry Men: An Analysis of Group Effectiveness Introduction Twelve men with diverse backgrounds are sequestered in a room and are unable to leave until a decision, a weighty one that will either condemn a young man to death or set him free, is made. The twelve strangers are bound to each other, trapped within the confines of four immovable walls, until the goal is achieved. They melt in the humidity of middle summer, which is exacerbated by the room's stuffiness and by the stress of their task. We, the audience, sweat as they grapple with each other and with the responsibility that is theirs to fulfill. One could spend a great deal of time debating if the jurors who comprised the cast of “Twelve Angry Men” (Lumet, 1957) were a group or a team. One could, and we will, cite definitions and descriptions from the literature to justify one conclusion or the other. The questions that are more interesting to us, and that constitute the thesis of this paper, are these: Were the jurors an effective group (or team)? And what factors contributed to group effectiveness? Schwarz (2002) has proposed a Group Effectiveness Model that provides facilitators who work with dysfunctional groups a road map, a way to identify where groups have gone wrong. Schwarz identifies three criteria for judging group success:...
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...subject regarding the fairness of jury’s is a very debatable topic. In the book, “The Twelve Angry Men”, the details of the book shows how jurors are just, by having a set rule to have a true unanimous vote. However, some people may think that jury’s are unfair due to different juror’s being biased. Despite the facts that some jurors may be biased, jury’s have a positive impact because of the personal opinion of someone. In America’s jury system there are many opportunities and factors...
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...seen in Twelve Angry Men. How does Rose use the play to reflect these themes? In Reginald Rose Twelve Angry Men, Rose uses the play to reflect the duty and responsibility of a juror. Rose uses the characters to reflect different themes of the play. As a democratic country, jurors have a great privilege and responsibility and it shouldn’t be taken lightly as some juror’s demonstrated. Rose represents different personalities and beliefs with each juror. A young man’s life is at stake, most of the juror’s assume he is guilty on the first vote. But luck for the boy is that the 8th juror who wants it to be a fair trial and wants to “talk this thing out”. A fair trial that everyone is entitled to. Juror 8th is in contrast with the other jury members who allow personal bias to make up their verdict and decisions. Rose starts of the play with the judge stating the duty of the jurors, and that they have to come up with a unanimous verdict. The play progresses with the changing of individual juror’s minds. Rose represents juror 8 as the protagonist and the hero of the case. Juror 8 represents the strengths of the jury systems. Juror 8 insists on looking at the facts in the case even though everyone else has already got their mind made up. In the play juror 8 is used to represent a juror who is doing his duty the right way. He is patient , tolerant and thinks about reasonable doubt. Even tho juror 8 was shadowed by 11 other jury members, he still stood his ground and wanted a fair trial...
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...prejudice 10th Juror is the most obvious example, immediately against the defendant just because he was "one of them." Similarly, 3rd Juror is prejudiced against the defendant because he reminds him of his own son, from whom he is estranged. On the other extreme, 8th Juror is prejudiced to give the defendant special consideration because he had a hard upbringing and comes from a poor background. recently auditioned for a local theater production of Twelve Angry Men. As a jury researcher, how could I resist? Although I did not get a part, I still went to a performance, and I was struck by how powerful and instructive the play still is, more than 50 years after its premiere. TAM was originally written for television by Reginald Rose and broadcast live on September 20, 1954. Rose then rewrote it as a stage play in 1955, and Sidney Lumet turned it into a 1957 film starring a veritable who's who of leading men of the day: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Klugman, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, E.G. Marshall, Ed Begley. This is the version that most people associate with the play. William Friedkin (who also directed The French Connection and The Exorcist--how's that for a curious portfolio) did a TV remake in 1997, with Jack Lemmon in the Henry Fonda role; Friedkin also had a couple of jurors be African American, which added a layer of complexity to the already present racial overtones. A Russian version, entitled 12, appeared in 2007 (Russia is one of several countries that has recently...
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...‘In Twelve Angry Men compassion and conscience win out over the forces of blind prejudice.’ To what extent is this true? Reginald Rose’s play ‘Twelve Angry Men’ sets in 1957, New York, explores the jury discussions of whether to convict the accused which is unanimous ‘certainty’ of a young boy’s guilt to ‘reasonable doubt’. Initially, the blind prejudice obscures the pathway to the truth. Some Jurors are influenced by the defendant’s social background, race and age which crease the Jurors to deliberate the case focused on facts. However, it leads to verdict of ‘not guilty’ due to the 8th Juror who has a reasonable doubt about the boy’s guilty and doesn’t condemn a man to death without discussing the case first. Some jurors also has sympathy for the boy meanwhile the 8th Juror has the conscience to consider the case honestly and thoughtfully. The prejudice attitudes with the less sympathetic of some jurors exceed the compassion and conscience at first. When they- WHO? YOU MUST USE PRONOUNS CORRECTLY- first enter the jury room, many jurors are ready to convict the defendant, not just on the evidence presented by the prosecution but just because the boy was born in slums. As the 4th juror says ‘Slums are breeding grounds for criminals.’ The boy can’t receive any respect and no doubt to have criminal behaviours. The hatred is apparently represent by the jurors ‘these people are born to lie, they are different.’ The inflexible idea in the jurors mind is that the person who...
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...Twelve Angry Men This play is about twelve jurors who are to decide the verdict of a 19 year old boy who is accused of killing his father. The jurors go into a room with the foreman to talk about the case and decide on a verdict. The vote has to be unanimous either guilty or not guilty for the case to end. To start the deciding, the jurors decide to take a preliminary vote to see where they stand. After counting the ballots the vote is 11 to 1, guilty. Juror number eight is the one who votes not guilty. The reason that juror eight voted not guilty was because he was not sure that the boy was guilty and he wanted to talk about it. One of the jurors decided to take a minute for each juror to tell their side of the story and what they personally think about the case. After a lot of main points were made such as there being two of the identical knives, the woman in her apartment saying she saw the murder take place through the window of the El train, and how the old man said that he heard the boy say that he was going to kill his father and then went to his door to see the boy run down the stairs. After all of this has taken place they decide to take another vote. The verdict is still 11 to 1 in the favor of guilty. Juror eight is now going over the time periods of when the woman said she saw the murder. Juror eight is also trying to explain how the man could not have seen the boy run down the stairs because the old man would not have had enough time to get out of bed. After juror...
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...If you were on death row, would you want a fair trial? Obviously, yes, I wouldn’t want anyone to die if there was reasonable doubt that they weren’t guilty. Reginald Rose’s purpose of writing twelve angry men was to show the pros and cons to the juror system and how effective it is. For example, in act three juror number five changed his vote to not guilty not because he believed that, but to have the trial finish quicker so he could get to his baseball game that he cared more about than a man’s life. Reading this part in the story, you can tell the ignorance of the character. The perfect example of how back then the jury system was ineffective. And to strike a question if it is still ineffective today. Within the last scene juror number...
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...Issues 12 Angry Men (original title: 12 Angry Men) is an American film from 1957, written by Reginald Rose. The film received three Academy Award nominations, best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay. It is an excellent example of 1950s social awareness and preparation of the common people in everyday situations. The film is thus a purely naturalistic wonders where all the action happens in real time, except for the film's beginning and end, in one place. Historically, we can look at the film in the context of the year of publication, 1957. USA was at this time in a political transition period. The civil rights movement was already well underway with the judgment of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and the bus boycott in Montgomery in 1956. Many of the film's themes is about racial and social inequalities which characterize this era in American history. The film is critical of society and provokes important social issues in the course of action. Examples are "class differences", "justice", "doubt", "one-to-many" and "the relationship between father and son." Together these stresses, a specific, comprehensive theme through action races, namely the "prejudice". Jury members' prejudices and personal insights against the accused, the trial and to one another is driving both the problem and the resolution of the action. The problem is thus as follows: How are the jury members' judgment influenced by prejudice? Action Report It is late summer...
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...Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose Structure, Language and Genre Structure • Twelve Angry Men follows a two-act structure, with the action running continuously rather than being broken into scenes. The second acts takes up exactly where the first left off – there is no change in chronology. • With no scene divisions, the progress of the play can be measured by the votes which take place, functioning as a kind of pulse, reminding the audience where the jury’s opinion stands on the defendant’s conviction. These moments serve as markers for the audience on the journey through the play, helping to structure the action. • The play follows the three classical unities of theatre derived from Aristotle: - Unity of action: there should be only one central plot (the jury’s deliberations and decisions). - Unity of time: In real and continuous time where there are no shifts in chronology (no breaks in play). - Unity of place: Action occurs in only one single location (the jury room). • Allows the audience to feel very close to characters, their relationships and the conflict and challenges with which they are faced in deciding the defendant’s fate. • Intensifies sense of realism and is particularly effective because of the claustrophobic nature of the setting. Language • Rose’s characters use naturalistic, everyday language appropriate to the times and for the audience. • Heightened poetic or symbolic language is rarely used, instead speaking in concrete terms about the...
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...12 Angry Men Submitted by: Pam McDonald E-mail: Pam_McDonald@nifc.blm.gov Phone: 208-387-5318 Audience Rating: Not Rated Released: 1957 Studio: United Artists/MGM Genre: Drama Runtime: 95 minutes Materials: VCR or DVD, television or projection system, Wildland Fire Leadership Values and Principles handouts (single-sided), notepad, writing utensil Objective: Students will identify Wildland Fire Leadership Values and Principles illustrated within 12 Angry Men and discuss leadership lessons learned with group members or mentors. Basic Plot: The jury of twelve 'angry men,' entrusted with the power to send an uneducated, teenaged Puerto Rican, tenement-dwelling boy to the electric chair for killing his father with a switchblade knife, are literally locked into a small, claustrophobic rectangular room on a stifling hot summer day until they come up with a unanimous decision - either guilty or not guilty. The compelling, provocative film examines the twelve men's deep-seated personal prejudices, perceptual biases and weaknesses, indifference, anger, personalities, unreliable judgments, cultural differences, ignorance and fears, that threaten to taint their decision-making abilities, cause them to ignore the real issues in the case, and potentially lead them to a miscarriage of justice. (http://www.filmsite.org/twelve.html) Cast of Main Characters: Martin Balsam Juror 1 (Foreman; coach) John Fiedler Juror 2 (Bank clerk; inexperienced...
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...times, the first three marriages ended very quickly but the last marriage in the 1950’s would last longer. Gideon and his wife settled in Panama City, Florida after having three children who would later be taken away by welfare authorities. Gideon found work as an electrician but gambled to subsidize his low income. Gideon would not go back to jail again until 1961. On June 3, 1961 four fifths of wine, twelve bottles of Coca Cola, twelve cans of beer, about five dollars from the cigarette machine and sixty dollars from the juke box were stolen from Bay Harbor Poolroom which belonged to Ira Strickland Jr. A twenty-two year old resident that lived close by, Henry Cook, told the police that he saw Gideon get into a cab after walking out of the pool hall with a bottle of wine and pockets filled with coins. Consequently, Gideon was arrested in a nearby tavern and ordered to stand trial. On August 4, 1961, Clarence Earl Gideon appeared for trial before Judge Robert L. McCrary, Jr. in the Circuit Court of the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida for Bay County. The trial transcript begins as follows: (Lewis P9) The Court: The next case on the docket is the case of...
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...Team C: Jury Nullification CJA/344 October 15, 2012 Team C: Jury Nullification Jury nullification has been a growing concern throughout the years for many Americans. Jury nullification is a constitutional doctrine that allows juries to acquit guilty defendants but who do not deserve punishment. Many believe that when this sort of action takes place the jury racially identify with the criminal defendant. There have been several cases for an example: the O.J Simpson case or the police officers in the Rodney King beating. The evidence was visible, but the verdict was not guilty. This paper includes how and if ethnicity influences courtroom proceedings and judicial practices, arguments against ethnicity-based jury nullification, contemporary examples of ethnicity based-jury nullification, and by choosing a position for or against ethnicity-based jury nullification. Ethnicity Influences and Judicial Practices There have been plenty of attempts to advance equal justice in the United States (Ward, Farrell, & Rousseau, 2009). In the criminal justice administration disparity still remains a concern. Criminal justice research on sentencing has found disparity based on defendant characteristics as gender, race, and class. There have been two changes by many individuals to secure equal justice in the court system. Implementations of sentencing guidelines, reduce bias, and increased racial and ethnic group representation among arbiters...
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...arraigned, provided a fair trial, and found guilty. They believe that if that individual is found guilty, then they must have committed the crime. However, the reality is sometimes the law abiding citizen is found guilty. An error occurs at some point in the criminal justice process from arrest to the verdict, which puts an innocent individual behind bars. It is a serious injustice towards that individual whether the error was an oversight, mistake, or just plain malicious. It raises questions whether our society can have faith in America’s criminal justice system. In Tested: How Twelve Wrongly Imprisoned Men Held Onto Hope, Dorothy Budd writes about twelve men that were wrongly convicted. Billy Smith and Johnnie Lindsey have stories to tell and what they have to say is important for everyone to hear. Billy Smith and Johnnie Lindsey were falsely imprisoned for around 20 years. They were both convicted of a sexual assault offense. What amazed me the most is although two decades or more of their lives were taken away from them, they were both content with what happened to them. Neither of them had hatred or anger towards the criminal justice system. Smith says, “America has the best justice system in the world.” I applaud them on keeping their faith and hope alive, even though the worst had happened to them. It is very hard to keep your faith when the odds are stacked up against you. I personally would probably have lost hope and been faithless, resentful, and angry. So for Smith and...
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