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Jury Duty In 12 Angry Men

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Imagine getting that one dreaded letter in the mail, calling you to do the one thing you didn’t plan the week before your wedding, JURY DUTY. Reginald Rose wrote the play Twelve Angry Men for a television drama after he sat on a jury. The characters in this play are identified not by names but by numbers. Twelve men are confined to a deliberation room after the trial of a 19-year-old boy accused of stabbing and killing his father. Twelve Angry Men illustrates the many dangers of the jury system like, a biased jury, being left with questions, and feeling inconvenienced by jury duty. Having a biased jury is just one way Twelve Angry Men shows the dangers of the jury system. Throughout the course of the play, many of the jurors assume, because …show more content…

Because of this many of the jurors in Twelve Angry Men felt inconvenienced when they had to do jury duty. Juror Seven lets it be known at the beginning of the play that he doesn’t want to be there. He tells everyone,”This better be fast. I’ve got tickets to ‘The Seven Year Itch’ tonight” (Rose 313-314). This shows that many people would think that going to a play was more important than deciding whether a 19-year-old should die or live. Being on a jury can also be hard for your family when you aren’t around. Juror Two asks if they would let them go home and finish it in the morning because it was getting late and he had a kid at home who had mumps (Rose 338). This shows how you would have to put everything in your life on hold, including your family, to be on a jury. Not only is jury duty a problem in Twelve Angry Men but it also is a problem for real world people. When talking to a mother about getting called to do jury duty she says it is very inconvenient when you have to put your life on hold for one trial. The mother I talked to is a teacher, she said that you have to get lesson plans together for all the days you will be gone and you don’t get paid for the days you were out (Meyer). Being on jury duty can be seen as an inconvenience to some people but you shouldn’t use that to justify voting a certain way to leave

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