An analysis of Twelve Angry Men

Thesis Statement: The negotiation process that took place between the twelve jury members was a decision making process by which the men were to come up with a unanimous vote of guilty or innocent

Introduction

The movie Twelve Angry Men involves twelve men, all of different ages, chosen for jury duty. Their case, a young boy accused of killing his father. The jurors had to reach a unanimous decision based on whether the boy was innocent or guilty of murder. The twelve men were placed in a small jury room, located inside the courtroom, where it was very warm because of the weather outside. Upon entering the room, each jury member was seated around a rectangular table according to his jury number in the courtroom (Phoebe pp.70-85).

At first, only one man found the boy innocent of the crime. Others immediately thought the boy was guilty after listening to the evidence in the court. The man who stood behind the boy entirely gave his reasoning to how the boy could not have committed this crime. Soon after that, another vote was taken and other men started to join the first guy in his reasoning. The men continued to state and argue their thoughts about the evidence concerning the case. This, what the men thought would take only a short period of time, went on for numerous hours (Munyan pp. 5-7).

Each time more evidence was discussed and opinions were stated, another vote was taken to see where the twelve men stood. On every occasion, the numbers changed, adding another vote to the innocent side (Lumet pp.25-30). Finally, towards the end of the movie, the first guy was able to convince all the other jury members that the boy was indeed innocent. It took a long time, a lot of patience, and a lot of arguing of their positions to arrive at the final decision that they walked into the courtroom with. All twelve jurors reached a unanimous decision, finding the boy innocent of killing his deadbeat dad.

Critical Analysis

The negotiation process that took place between the twelve jury members was a decision making process by which the men were to come up with a unanimous vote of guilty or innocent. The outstanding nature of this situation meant that the jurors had to negotiate and renegotiate their decisions until they all agreed on the same verdict. The men had to develop a ...