...INTRO: Twelve Angry Men, Reginald Rose’s remarkable 1954 play, portrays the trial of the accused, a 16 year old boy from the slums of New York, who will face death as a result of a guilty verdict. Consequently, twelve jurors attempt coming to a unanimous decision. Although justice is ultimately secured, prejudice is an evident theme in the play. Twelve Angry Men explores personal prejudice in the justice system by revealing how preconception overwhelms the juror’s ability to see reason, by the jurors presenting opinions rather than evidence and by demonstrating stereotypical qualities which threatens to derail the process. PARA 1: Preconception overwhelms the juror’s ability to see reason. The defendant was at a serious disadvantage and was a victim of prejudice even before the court case. The majority of the jurors were ready to convict the accused, not purely due to the arguments presented by the prosecution but due to the 16 year old being a member of a low societal ranking. Many of the men enter the jury room with preconceived opinions and irrational ideas. For example, the 3rd Juror is against the accused due to an unhealthy relationship with his own son. This is demonstrated when he exclaims ‘I know him. What they’re like. What they do to you. How they kill you every day.’ Therefore the 3rd juror fails provide his arguments to the rest of the jury because his decision is based on emotions. Rose demonstrated the importance of keeping an open-mind rather than of holding...
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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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...As shown in this quote, Dershowitz means that juries are composed of different people who have different opinions on certain things. The 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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...Elisha Watson English 25/7 Contention: Prejudice shows how snap judgements were made that heavily influenced the case at hand, however throughout the course of the play we see that these prejudices were broken down. Arguments: 1. Prejudice displayed through the 3rd, 7th, 10th and 2nd jury members and their apparent lack of compassion and sympathy for a boy none of them know that is on trial for a murder case 2. How easily the other, quieter jury members where influenced by authority/ influential members of the jury team (juror 8, juror 3) 3. The American justice system in the 1950s to today’s views on punishment 4. The 1950s and how social/ political and economic choices all influenced the juror’s decisions in the murder case Title, author Context Contention However statement Twelve Angry Men, a play by Reginald Rose, unfolds within the archetypical and unceasing setting of a 20th Century American court room. The audience bear witness to the procession of a court case in which twelve jury members are set to delegate a murder case where the defendant is a young African American boy who is on trial for the alleged killing his father after a heated argument between the accused and the victim. The play’s theme of prejudice is heavily shown to be a prominent theme in which the majority of the jury members make hasty and potentially deadly decisions based on a pre-existing judgement based on the ill-conceived philosophies of that time period, and of what the America justice...
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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 Essay The 3rd Juror says that “everybody deserves a fair trial.” Does the defendant in this case get a fair trial? Twelve Angry Men, a play by Reginald Rose, was written in 1955 at a time when America was involved in a cold war with communist countries. It shows the strength of a deliberative process that enables individuals, who have “nothing to gain or lose,” to reach a verdict. In the American jury system “everybody deserves a fair trial” and in Twelve Angry Men the defendant gets a very fair trial. All the jurors have their own opinions on the case but in the end a decision is made. The jury, and the audience, never discovers if in fact the defendant did murder his father. His guilt or innocence seems to be almost irrelevant. At the beginning of the play the vote was 11-1 in favour of guilty but the 8th Juror convinces the others to have another vote. As the play progresses more and more jurors being to change their vote and by the end of the play the vote was 11-1 in favour of ‘not guilty.’ The defendant does get a fair trial because throughout the play there was enough “reasonable doubt” for him to be guilty. The 10th juror had no intentions on giving the defendant a ‘fair trial’ and just wanted him to be sent to the “electric chair.” By the play’s end all twelve men had agreed to a “not guilty” vote. The 8th Juror had managed, by simply pointing out “sometimes the facts that are staring you in the face are wrong!” to convince even the strongest advocates...
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...12 Angry Men is a gripping drama that depicts twelve American jurors confined to a jury room on a hot and humid summer day to decide the guilt or innocence of a defendant in a murder trial.1 Before sending out the twelve jurors to deliberate, the judge reminds them that their verdict must be unanimous and that if they hold “reasonable doubt” as to the guilt of the accused then their verdict must be “not guilty.” If, however, they find the defendant guilty then he will be sentenced to death. Eleven of the jurors, believing that the prosecution has presented an “open-and-shut”case,quickly vote for conviction.They believe that the young, poor Puerto Rican defendant, who has a criminal record and lives in the “slums,” killed his father with a switchblade knife. The sole initial dissenter is Juror 8, played in the film by Henry Fonda, who votes“not guilty” as the deliberations begin. As the film proceeds, he deconstructs the pros- ecution’s case, progressing from communicating a sense of vague uneasiness to articulating a precise refutation of the other jurors’ specific arguments. The Negotiation Environment To analyze the negotiation environment in 12 Angry Men, we adopt the methodology outlined by Rojot (1991), who wrote that a negotiation is structured by the relationship between the parties, the resources and con- straints within the environment, and the bargaining power. Rojot identified two significant dimensions for evaluating the environment...
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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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...“It's very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And no matter where you run into it, prejudice obscures the truth.' “Tjhis phrase sums up the basis of Twelve Angry Men' by Reginald Rose. This play is about a young delinquent on trial for the murder of his abusive father. The jury must find him guilty if there is no reasonable doubt, and in turn, sentence him to death. “I don't envy your job. You are faced with a grave responsibility.” People's bias and predispositions can affect their opinion of different circumstances and different people. This is very evident throughout the play. After the first group vote and juror 8 votes not guilty, a discussion ensues. It is there that the jurors' personal prejudices come out and we the readers/viewers are able to see how this has influenced and shaped what they think. There are many significant views and values that Reginald Rose demonstrates in 12 Angry Men the most important one being that prejudice constantly affects the truth and peoples judgement. As the jurors argue between themselves as to whether a young boy is guilty of stabbing his father it is shown that “It’s very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this.” This is most evident in the way juror #3 and juror #10 come to their decision that the young man is guilty as they bring in there prejudice against young people and people from the slums to make their judgement without considering the facts of the case. Rose uses juror #8 who can see...
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...Twelve Angry Men is about a jury who must decide the fate of an 18 year old boy who allegedly killed his father. The jury must determine a verdict of guilty beyond any reasonable doubt and not guilty. A guilty verdict would mean that the accused would receive the death penalty. After a day of deliberation and many votes, they came up with the verdict of not guilty. I believe they achieved their overall goal of coming up with a verdict they were all able to agree with. It seems there were some individual personal short term goals that were not met. One being that the one juror was not able to go to the baseball game. Another was that a juror was not able to take out the anger he had towards his son on the son accused of killing his father. There was a lot of nonverbal communication in the deliberating room. These ranged from angry glances, shifting in chairs, nervous sweating, and getting up and walking away from the table while someone was speaking. Angry glances across the table when votes change or confronted by a difference in opinions. Juror shifting in their chairs when asked certain questions communicate that they are becoming uncomfortable or starting to doubt. Also, one juror was asked if he ever did sweat and was answered no. Later in the movie, that man started sweating when asked about movies he watched a few days before and he could not remember. There were many communication barriers in the movie. The noise of the rain was loud and distracting to...
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...because no body proved otherwise. He doesn’t maintain his stand for long and usually changes his opinion after speaking with someone. He is 38 years old. 3rd juror is 40 years old business owner who is very opinionated and difficult to be convinced. His personal relationship with his son played a major role in prejudice against the defendant. 50 years old 4th Juror is a stock broker. He wears glasses and seems to present himself professionally and his main concerns are facts of the case which led him believe the boy killed his father....
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...CASE STUDY ASSIGNMENT EK RUKA HUA FAISLA GROUP - 3 Group Members:- Amit Pandit Mittal Shah Ramachandran Ravi Kumar Saleem Ali Shaman Singh PLOT SUMMARY: In this movie, the jury of twelve men is entrusted with the power to send an uneducated, teenage boy to the Death Penalty. The crime that the boy is accused of is killing his father with a knife. The jury is locked into a small, claustrophobic room, on a hot summer day, until they come up with a unanimous decision. The decision that is to decide a boy’s life is to be either guilty or not guilty. The film is particularly important as it examines the twelve men's deep-seated personal prejudices. These are reflected in the perceptual biases and weaknesses, indifference, anger, personalities, unreliable judgments, cultural differences, ignorance and fears, that are in a position to mar their decision-making abilities, and subsequently cause them to ignore the real issues in the case. This can potentially lead them to a miscarriage of justice. What are the key learning for you as leaders? First and foremost, we learn that every decision should be based on reasonable evidence and it can be dangerous to rush to conclusions. In the movie, most of the Jury members were initially in a hurry to shut the case and pronounce the accused guilty even when they know it’s a matter of someone’s life. Only Mr. Raina stands against such a decision and demands that the jury should give appropriate time to the issue and have a healthy...
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...12 Angry Men PROC 5840, Negotiations, Midterm Case Analysis Table of Contents Table of Contents……………………………………………………….……………………………….…2 Character Listing…………………………………………………………………………………………...3 Major Case Issues…………………………………………………………………………………………..5 Analysis of Juror Number Eight……………………………………………………………………………7 Analysis of Juror Number Four…………………………………………………………………………...13 Analysis of Juror Number Nine…………………………………………………………………………...17 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………….19 12 Angry Men Character Listing Juror Number One (Martin Balsam): The jury foreman, he got off to a shaky start. However, he took his role seriously and facilitates voting. He was generally passive. Outside of the jury room he was an assistant high school football coach. Juror Number Two (John Fielder): This shy bank clerk was initially reluctant to participate and seemed intimidated by other jurors. Although he exhibited a tendency toward avoidance, eventually he contributed to the discussion. His opinion was easily swayed and he appeared to parrot other jurors. Juror Number Three (Lee J. Cobb): This small business owner shared the story of his turbulent relationship with his own son. He was aggressive and confrontational, using hard bargaining tactics such as intimidation, threats, and insults to influence others. He was the last juror to change his mind. Juror Number Four (E.G. Marshall): A calm, rational, and self-assured stockbroker, he concentrated...
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...The Assignment BUS 520 Meaning of action: semantic vs pragmatic. The importance of language : How we speak about action; what are the specific circumstances between actors. Language creates new meanings. New linguistic meanings create new possibilities and social realities. And language and action inform each other. Example: the statement “Jump from the window!” can mean many things. The statement can be “reinterpreted in many ways” and “different kinds of actions” are compatible/triggered by that statement, other than the literal interpretation and action that reflects the literal meaning. Semantics views action as propositional sentences. Seen as statements that someone makes to someone about something; they refer to events in the world (mere descriptions of things). Theory of action: from what? To Why? To who? (the agent). Focusing too much on What? and Why? and losing track of Who? (The who? Is ultimately needed for understand action from an ethical perspective.) We need to understand action related to an agent (not just a logical agent but a self). Attribution (of predicates) to a logical subject is not the same as: Ascription to a self where the agent can self-designate himself in the action he performed (or better yet, that he has not yet performed). Imputation (of moral value to an action) is an improvement over attribution but it is not enough. We must distinguish between event vs. action, knowing how vs. knowing that. Action can...
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...Memorandum This memorandum will elicit the implied lesson regarding effective leadership as portrayed in the film “12 Angry Men” through a dissection of the film’s characters and storyline. The following topics will be considered in our analysis: * Descriptions of characters * Analysis of informal leaders’ tactics * Assessment of the formally assigned leader * Factors for effective persuasion * Integral traits of a leader Descriptions of characters The twelve jurors come into the trial from different backgrounds and inevitably view the trial through different colored lenses. To analyze such deviation in perspective, it is necessary to briefly understand the psychological architecture and identifying any potential personaly biases of the following jurors: * Foreman * Vacillating and humble juror * Loud-mouthed and bigoted juror * Factually analytical juror * Empathetic shanty-town-raised juror * Honest and slow-thinking craftsman * Distracting baseball fan * The opposing architect * Late old man * Antagonistic old man * Impressionable justice-driven immigrant * Indecisive marketing executive Foreman This fair-minded individual is easily frustrated, sensitive about how others perceive his ability to lead, and really motivated to ensure that the process of jury deliberation is conducted properly. His desire to be perceived as worthy of the leadership role he has assumed leads him to side with the majority...
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