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Examples Of Prejudice In The 12 Angry Men

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Prejudice and judgement often results in suppression of truth because it causes one to form opinions and beliefs based on incomplete information. In the story theres evident prejudice among the jurors, witnesses and even the justice system. When allowing preconceptions to cloud one’s judgement, considering alternative perspectives is difficult. This can lead to a limited view of the world that may prevent one from seeing the full picture and can result in suppression of truth. This is demonstrated through various elements in The 12 Angry Men. The majority of the jurors have evident prejudice against the boy - pertaining to race. They collectively and almost instinctively decide to dismiss the case, wanting to avoid the truth, and acting on their personal judgments instead of gaining a realistic impression from the case. This is displayed when juror 8 tries to question the case and the other jurors respond with impatient and neglectful attitudes, stating that a sports game is on that night which they favour greater than the life of a teen boy. …show more content…

It was later proven that both stories testified by the eyewitnesses were fake as they further questioned things. Juror nine proposed that the reasoning may be for the sake of being heard – tired of being overlooked and lonely as elderly people. This shows the disregard they have for the boy, putting a young life at risk for themself to be seen and heard for once. They judged and accused the boy before fulling understanding what happened that

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Block 4 Prejudice is a big problem in today’s juries, as it can put an innocent person in jail, or worse. Twelve angry men by Reginald Rose is a great example of what can happen if jurors' minds are poisoned by prejudice and bias. The book is centered around Juror 8 who has the big job of showing a prejudiced jury that a kid who was alleged to have committed premeditated homicide was innocent. Reginald Rose uses the 3rd juror to develop the ideas of prejudice on juries by showing how personal experience can help feed into prejudice heavily, and how.

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1964 Words | 8 Pages

What if juror 8 did not have the courage to freely state his opinion? The innocent boy would be dead for doing absolutely nothing.

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At the start of the juror meeting, the jurors voted, and the only person to vote not guilty was juror eight. He said he wanted to talk about the case before deciding whether the son was guilty. Juror eight shows a great reason for proving how the facts and witnesses in court create doubt in him. He slowly persuades all the jurors until it comes down to juror three who says the kid is guilty only because his own son and him got in a fight. The jurors deliberated about the facts using common sense and reasonable doubt to decide that he was not guilty.

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896 Words | 4 Pages

Juror Nine votes not guilty because he admires Juror Eight for standing alone against the majority. Once the jurors start to discuss the case again Juror Seven questions who else would have the motive to kill this boy’s father. Juror Eight rebuts by saying, “As far as I know, we’re supposed to decide whether or not the boy on trial is guilty. We’re not concerned with anyone else’s motives here” (Rose 240).

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Daja McLaurin Benton TA: Yiwen Dai Communications: 250 1 April, 2016 12 Angry Men Assessment After viewing the movie 12 Angry Men the group was able to implement the ideas of group think immediately during the start of the movie. Since the men briefly established a relationship from the time of witnessing the trial to start of deliberation n the empty room and reaching a unanimous decision, they found that all of the men initially achieved a verdict of guilty accept for juror 8. After this surprising decision the men began to show their true colors and distinguish how one may believe something and another juror may believe another. The group takes time in pleading individual opinions while deciding on the guilt or innocence of a young boy

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569 Words | 3 Pages

In the play Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, we can see that prejudice gets in the way of truth. Many of the jurors that participated have let prejudice get in their way to see the truth and look at the real situation and facts, for example, Juror Three, who “is a very strong, very forceful, extremely opinionated man within whom can be detected a streak of sadism… is intolerant of opinions other than his own, and accustomed to forcing his wishes upon others.” He has a son that he identifies as a “tough guy”, which is one of the descriptions of the 19-year-old accused, Juror Three let the image of his own son be reflected on the boy and made him think unfairly. Getting to the bottom of a complex issue takes time and effort. At the beginning of the play, most jury members wanted to get over the case and go home as early as they could, but one of the jury members, Juror Eight, who was sure the boy was not guilty, took many hours to question the evidence and the case and murder itself, but he was not the only one as other jury members also spoke about what they thought in the past options, fairly quick, it was almost six in the evening and Juror Six wanted to leave to go to his family, it may have been more of an excuse to leave, but the jurors did not let him leave because they had gone far enough to decide where the trial was going

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760 Words | 4 Pages

For example, Juror 3 is convinced that the boy is guilty because he has a strained relationship with his own son. He projects his own feelings of anger and resentment onto the boy, and argues that he must be guilty based on his own experiences. Juror 10 is

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1191 Words | 5 Pages

The play 12 Angry Men is about a jury of twelve men that are given the task of deciding the fate, guilty or not guilty, of a young boy accused of murdering his father. The theme of standing up against the majority is very prevalent in this story because of the decisions some of the jurors make throughout the play. Juror 8 makes the decision to vote not guilty, he is the one and only juror in this play that decides to vote not guilty for the boy in the beginning. The other eleven jurors decide to vote guilty because of the evidence that they have been presented with. The act of Juror 8 standing against the majority of the other jurors about the case, voting not guilty, allows the jurors to thoroughly dissect the case, understanding it fully and thoughtfully before making their decision of guilty or not guilty.

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803 Words | 4 Pages

This process continues throughout the course of the movie, and each juror’s biases is slowly revealed. Earlier through the movie, it is already justifiable to label juror 10 as a bigoted racist as he reveals strong racist tendencies against the defendant, stating his only reason for voting guilty is the boy’s ethnicity and background. . Another interesting aspect of this 1957 film is the “reverse prejudice” portrayed by juror

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795 Words | 4 Pages

Juror Three’s past experience with his father and how he “used to call him sir” reflects his beliefs on how a boy should treat their father (Rose 17). Not only that, but Juror Three’s relationship with his own son parallels his views onto the defendant of the case, which can clearly be seen since “When he was sixteen [they] had a battle. He hit [Juror Three] right in the face” (Rose 18). It being quite apparent how he has clouded judgment since he mirrors the emotions of his own “rotten kid”, onto the sixteen-year-boy on trial (Rose 18). Juror Three’s character background being the reason why he believes “Everyone knows this kid is guilty.

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If it wasn 't for Juror #8, I don 't know what terrible consequences would have been. Owing to his insistence, the case was discussed and everyone began to pay attention to the details of the case, testimony, evidence, and witness actions. In the end, twelve people overcame prejudice, ceased the conflict, and made the right decision. The play tells us that justice can be affected by prejudice very easily.

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1394 Words | 6 Pages

Prejudice is observed on several levels throughout the course of the play. In the most obvious sense, the play deals with racial prejudice. While the race of the accused boy is never completely mentioned in the movie, we do understand that he is a minority of some sort, and this consequently becomes a heated issue among the jurors, especially for 10th juror, who refers to the young boy as “one of them”. If we consider prejudice from a larger perspective, we find that, while maybe not racially driven, many of the jurors enter the jury room with preconceived notions and irrational ideas related to their previous experiences, jobs or relationships.

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814 Words | 4 Pages

Juror Ten announces his intentions very early in the play. He speaks loudly and forcefully from the beginning, clearly showing his racism and prejudice towards the boy. Juror 10 quickly votes guilty and asserts that the defendant cannot be believed because “they’re born liars”. Additionally, he claims that the “kids who crawl outa those places are real trash.”

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915 Words | 4 Pages

His prejudice is clear when he says that “I’ve lived among ‘em all my life. You can’t believe a word they say” when speaking about the boy (16). Juror Ten’s prejudice causes him to disregard all of the facts that are presented to him by Juror Eight that can prove that the accused is not guilty. Juror 10 allows his prejudice to blind him of the truth. That is until he is called out by his fellow jurors.

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721 Words | 3 Pages

The movie “Twelve Angry Men” illustrates lots of social psychology theories. This stretched and attractive film, characterize a group of jurors who have to decide the innocence or guiltiness of an accused murder. They are simply deliberating the destiny of a Puerto Rican teenaged boy accused of murdering his father. Initially, as the film begins, except the juror Davis (Henry Fonda), all other jurors vote guilty. Progressively, the jurors begin trying to compromise on a point that everybody agree because the decision of the jury has to be unanimous.

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