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12 Angry Men Corruption Essay

482 Words2 Pages

When someone has committed a crime, they are put on trial and they go through the motions of the judicial system. In 12 Angry Men, Reginald Rose creates a play that displays the judicial system in its truest form. It tells the story of the jury, as they have to come to a unanimous verdict of whether the defendant is guilty, innocent, guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, of murder. The main conflict that the jurors face in the play is whether to charge him as guilty or not. Through the conflict in the book, the flaws in the justice system are illustrated and reasonable doubt appears. They are most apparent through the first vote, the change of heart in the seventh juror and the final verdict. In the beginning, eleven of the twelve jurors believed …show more content…

In Rose’s play this is shown when Juror 7 changes his vote to not-guilty just to change things up. This upsets many of the others and Juror 11 says, “You have no right to play like this with a man’s life” (63). Juror 7 changed his votes for personal reasons and through this Rose demonstrates that the jury is imperfect because people are imperfect. In the very end of the book, the imperfections within the judicial system are strongly illustrated when the final verdict is decided. All the jurors except Juror 3 had been convinced he was no longer guilty, even though the evidence displays it as such. After much debate juror number three says,”All right. ‘Not guilty’ ”(72). All the testimonies and evidence given by the court had been proven wrong by the jury. This shows major flaws in the justice system and it shows how reasonable doubt is found. There are multiple instances of conflict and reasonable doubt throughout Rose’s whole play. A few examples being the final verdict, the first vote, and the change of heart in Juror 7. These times of conflict help to display the truly flawed judicial system and the amount of reasonable doubt that is brought up. Even after facts and evidence are brought to the jury they still find a way to disprove it, which shows the imperfections in the

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