Courts and Procedures in Twelve Angry Men: A Judicial Analysis

Introduction

The title of the film Twelve Angry Men (1957) is somewhat misleading: there are actually eleven angry men depicted in the film and one rational man who is capable of seeing the facts. The classic courtroom drama depicts twelve male jurors who have recently heard a trial where a young Puerto Rican boy stands accused of murdering his father. At the beginning of the film, all of the jurors (and the weary judge) seem resolved to convict the defendant. They believe the case is open and shut. The one exception is a single juror who refuses to vote guilty based on his belief that when a man's life is at stake, no decision can be made lightly. The movie—actually a filmed stage play, given its static nature—dramatizes how the other jurors come to doubt their original position and realize what the film implies is the truth: that the boy is innocent.

The Role of Prosecution in the Case

The prosecution in the film could be said to be the "villain" of the piece, since it seems likely that the prosecutor capitalized upon social prejudices to secure a conviction. According to film critic Michael D'Angelo (2012), "Clearly, Reginald Rose, who wrote the original teleplay as well as the film script, intended the unnamed defendant—we'll just call him The Kid, as the jurors generally do—to be innocent. There isn't some hidden twist that nobody's ever noticed until now. But in attempting to make the scenario as dramatic as possible, Rose inadvertently and unwittingly made it almost impossible for The Kid not to have killed his old man."

Based upon the evidence recounted by the jurors, the prosecutor suggested that the boy had a motivation: he was overheard threatening to kill his father shortly before the murder took place. The boy also had the means to commit the crime. There are also two eyewitnesses: an old neighbor who saw the boy fleeing from the apartment and a woman who claimed to have actually seen the murder committed. The boy's alibi is that he was at the movies, but he cannot remember which movie he saw and he admits he owns a switchblade like the murder weapon. Since the play is set during the 1950s, there is no DNA evidence to connect the boy to the specific blade used in the crime. The prosecutor appears to have been the more convincing attorney of the two, given the overwhelming desire to convict of the majority of the jurors at the beginning of the play.

The Inadequacy of the Defense

Neither the prosecution nor the defense is actually depicted on screen. There is a suggestion that the defense was lacking, however, given the extent to which all the jurors—even the more reasonable ones—are aligned against the defendant at the beginning of the film. It falls to the lone, doubting juror (Juror No. 8) to provide the accused Puerto Rican boy's defense more so than his actual defense attorney. Juror No. 8 reenacts the crime, doubting the supposedly watertight eyewitness testimony. As film critic Roger Ebert (2002) writes, "We watch as Fonda imitates the shuffling step of the old man, a stroke victim, to see if he could have gotten to the door in time to see the murderer fleeing."

Although this is an extremely dramatic moment in the film, a good defense attorney should have highlighted this during the trial. There is little indication that the most obvious holes in the prosecution's case were challenged by the defense. At one point, Juror No. 8 even points out that he bought a similar switchblade to the defendant's in the same neighborhood. This seems like a very unlikely coincidence and is more along the lines of the investigation that a defense attorney might conduct, versus an impartial juror. The film seems to place greater weight and confidence in the jurors to sift through the evidence than in the actual attorneys.

Jury Dynamics and Deliberation

The depiction of the jury in the film is both cynical and idealistic at once. On one hand, there are clear examples of how the prejudices of a juror can get in the way of his ability to view the facts objectively, as is the case with the racist juror who assumes that all Hispanic people are prone to violence and are hot-tempered. Other jurors do not take their duties seriously, as is the case with the man who is more concerned about getting to a baseball game on time than taking the time to deliberate the guilt or innocence of the defendant. However, the fact that one man is willing to hold out and convince his fellow jurors that another look at the facts is warranted clearly shows that the film believes in the principle that if twelve people are summoned together, this is enough to have one (or two) people act as a counterweight to mob justice.

It should be noted that in retrospect, some people have questioned whether the doubts of Juror No. 8 are justified. As D'Angelo (2012) argues, "What ensures The Kid's guilt for practical purposes, though neither the prosecutor nor any of the jurors ever mentions it (and Rose apparently never considered it), is the sheer improbability that all the evidence is erroneous. You'd have to be the jurisprudential inverse of a national lottery winner to face so many apparently damning coincidences and misidentifications." The tone of the film clearly supports the defendant's innocence even though the circumstantial evidence is very strong. The racism of the jurors most vehemently in favor of conviction, however, naturally sways the viewer in the other direction.

Systemic Disparities and Appeals

The level of proof demanded by Juror No. 8 seems much greater than the standard of "reasonable doubt" specifically called for by the judicial system in criminal cases. However, his level of scrutiny seems warranted, at least according to the film, because a man's life hangs in the balance. Arguably, Twelve Angry Men is just as much an argument against the death penalty as it is against prejudice.

Although not specifically addressed in the film, it is often alleged that minorities suffer disproportionately harsh sentences because of their status. The film makes it clear that prejudice runs very deep within the judicial system. Even the jurors who are eventually convinced to take a reasonable and unbiased position toward the defendant are initially inclined to find him guilty, based on the attitude of the judge and the location where the crime occurred. The defendant is lower class, not white, poor, and probably not particularly articulate. He likely does not have a very good defense lawyer; otherwise, the arguments presented by Juror No. 8 would likely have been presented at trial, not mused over in the juror's room.

It is possible that if the defendant was convicted, he could have appealed the verdict based on the fact that his lawyer was incompetent, if his lawyer did not present any of the arguments which later arose in the jury room. Still, the fact that they were not presented speaks volumes about the writer's attitude regarding the disparities inherent to the American system of justice.

Conclusion

Today, Twelve Angry Men is considered a classic film. It showed the dark side of the American judicial system while still suggesting that the system does fundamentally work, even for a person of color. While the film's ending is very idealistic, it still does not shy away from raising uncomfortable aspects of the juror system that are still relevant today. Putting aside prejudices while judging a case is challenging, especially for people who are not formally trained in law.