“12 Angry Men” focuses on a jury’s deliberations about a capital murder case regarding the murder of a father supposedly committed by his young son. The case is believed to be an open and shut case. There is, however a dilemma as to convict or acquit the young boy all 12 men must reach a unanimous decision. When the first vote is taken 11 men believe the boy is guilty and one does not. This one man, an architect, refuses to automatically render a guilty verdict. This one man, Juror #8, tells the men that he feels there is reasonable doubt and that he will not send a boy to the electric chair without discussing it first. The rest of the film's focus is the jury's difficulty in reaching a unanimous verdict but several of the jurors harbour personal
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The accused claimed that the weapon, a switchblade, fell out of his pocket and it must have been picked up or that someone might have possessed the same knife. The men who consider him guilty say that the weapon is rare and no one else could own a similar knife. In response to this argument juror #8 pulls out an exact replica of the knife used to kill the man.
After this display with the knives the group takes another vote. In a second vote, done by secret ballot, 10 men still think the boy is guilty while two do not. The questioning of the evidence and the second vote planted the seeds of doubt in the jury and this is where they began to really question whether the boy was guilty.
Juror #8 presents a convincing argument that one of the witnesses, an elderly man who claimed to have heard the boy yell "I'm going to kill you" shortly before the murder took place, could not have heard the voices as clearly as he had testified due to a train passing by at the time. He also points that many who say “I’m going to kill you” don’t really mean it. This caused one more juror to vote not guilty. Next Juror #11 questions whether the defendant would have reasonably fled the scene before cleaning the knife of fingerprints, then come back three hours later to retrieve the knife (which had been left in his father's chest) and then changes his
The accused claimed that the weapon, a switchblade, fell out of his pocket and it must have been picked up or that someone might have possessed the same knife. The men who consider him guilty say that the weapon is rare and no one else could own a similar knife. In response to this argument juror #8 pulls out an exact replica of the knife used to kill the man.
After this display with the knives the group takes another vote. In a second vote, done by secret ballot, 10 men still think the boy is guilty while two do not. The questioning of the evidence and the second vote planted the seeds of doubt in the jury and this is where they began to really question whether the boy was guilty.
Juror #8 presents a convincing argument that one of the witnesses, an elderly man who claimed to have heard the boy yell "I'm going to kill you" shortly before the murder took place, could not have heard the voices as clearly as he had testified due to a train passing by at the time. He also points that many who say “I’m going to kill you” don’t really mean it. This caused one more juror to vote not guilty. Next Juror #11 questions whether the defendant would have reasonably fled the scene before cleaning the knife of fingerprints, then come back three hours later to retrieve the knife (which had been left in his father's chest) and then changes his