Juror's Guilt In 'Twelve Angry Men'

Many people claim that they could easily make the decision of guilty or not guilty, but is this really the case? The jurors in the play Twelve Angry Men are tasked with deciding the life of a boy accused of killing his father. This proves to be a daunting task for them as every juror except Juror 8 initially believes that the boy is not guilty. When asked to explain his reasoning for his verdict, he gives his reasons such as producing an exact replica of the knife and the woman across the el-tracks not wearing her glasses while spotting the murder take place. These two pieces of evidence prove to be the most crucial part of why the boy is innocent. This replica knife that was brought in by Juror 8 plays a major role in proving that the defendant

Why would someone go to sleep with their glasses on? Juror 8 goes into this point by stating, “I think it’s logical to say that she was not wearing her glasses in bed, and I don’t think she’d put them on to glance out the window. . . . She testified that the murder took place the instant she looked out. She couldn’t have had time to put her glasses on then” (Rose 1.3.61-62). With this argument against the woman’s testimony, there is enough reasonable doubt that what she saw actually happened to rule out this being a major piece of evidence against the boy. The ruling out of these major pieces of evidence makes an argument for the boy’s guilt extremely difficult, but some would use the point of the old man and how he saw the boy go down the hallway after murdering his father to try and make an argument. The jurors prove that this could have happened by simulating the time of the murder and how fast the old man could have got to the door. Juror 12 states, “So now both time sequences check--the one you did and the one we did; what with running downstairs and everything, it does pretty much check out on time” (Rose

One of the inconsistencies mentioned was the dim lights in the hallway, making it difficult to identify a running figure. Juror 11 touches on this, “... this old man looked down the dark hallway of a tenement and recognized a running figure” (Rose 1.3.53). It can be inferred that with this being an old man that needs help sitting down into a chair, he might not have the greatest eyesight and merely assumed that it was the boy running down the hallway. In summary, the story of Twelve Angry Men goes deep into the complexity of what makes someone innocent or guilty, which can change based on extreme critical thinking and questioning of each piece of evidence. It starts with only Juror 8 and his replica knife, disproving the guarantee of the knife the boy purchased and the knife that was used in the murder being the same knife. This sways only one person from changing their vote, but it is enough to spark more discussions of evidence leading to the woman across the el-tracks, whose testimony is discredited due to her glasses almost certainly not being on at the time she witnessed the