Influence and decision-making in Twelve Angry Men: juror persuasion techniques

Angry Men is a dramatic representation of a jury deliberating the fate of a young man accused of murdering his father. It is also the tale of one lone juror who faces off against the others when he believes the defendant is innocent while all the other jurors believe him to be guilty. This lone juror, the architect, also known as Juror #8, proceeds to argue with the others, slowly changing their minds, until they finally decide that the defendant is indeed not guilty. Juror #8 uses a number of argumentative techniques in his presentation to the others, and finally is able to get the others to agree to his point-of-view.

At the beginning of the jury's deliberations, they decide to take a vote to see where everyone stands. At this time 11 juror's vote "guilty," while only Juror #8 votes "not-guilty." When confronted by his vote, juror #8 first uses an appeal to the higher values of righteousness, he states "it's not easy to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first." (12:00) This appeal for simple justice, to at least discuss the case before making a life or death decision, presents the seriousness to the others and is Juror #8's attempt to get the others to take the case seriously.

But Juror #8 is sheepish and uncertain of himself, he tries to make the others see that a boy's life is at stake but seems to be ineffective. Then he uses another argumentative technique, bargaining, and makes the offer that if the jury takes a second vote and he is still the only one voting "not-guilty," he will change his vote. Juror #8's gamble pays off by convincing Juror #9 that his appeal for righteousness deserves the chance to be heard. The deliberations continue.

Juror #8 then proceeds to make the rest look again at the evidence, from a logical point-of-view. He begins to take apart the individual testimony of the witnesses against the boy and demonstrates how their testimony is really unclear. For example, Juror #8 combines two separate pieces of testimony together and shows that they contradict each other. One witness said he heard an argument between the boy and his father and then heard the father's body hit the floor. Another witness said she saw the murder take place through the windows of a passing commuter train. However, because the train makes so much noise, there is no way anyone could have heard the argument or a body hitting the floor. Later he reveals the fact that the woman also wore glasses, and therefore it would have been impossible for her to clearly see the murder as she lay in bed without her glasses.

At this point Juror #8 begins to build a coalition of others who begin to see that the case is not so clear cut as previously thought. First Juror #9, then another and another come over to his side as his argument persuades them the defendant may not be guilty. But it is the actions of some of the other jurors who aid in Juror #8's building of a coalition. Two jurors are particularly abrasive characters, one is an ignorant bigot, the other is simply angry at the world. Their interactions with the other jurors, their insults and berating, builds up acrimony and turns several jurors over to the side of Juror #8.