12 Angry Men and the Psychology of the Jury Room - Essay Example

The 1957 film 12 Angry Men perfectly captures the tension of the jury room, where life-and-death decisions come down to not only careful deliberation, but inner prejudices, self-concerned personal priorities, and invective. Ultimately, the human ego plays just as important a role in the film’s outcome as the examination of evidence and witnesses in that cloistered room. The protagonist of the film, Juror #8, is “the only skeptical (and rational) man in the jury room” who “shines incorruptible” throughout the entirety of the movie (Verrone 96).

Juror #8 is the lone standout at the beginning of the jury deliberations, which angers many of the other jurors who feel it is an open-and-shut case. But Juror #8 explains his hesitation: “It’s not easy to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first” (12 Angry Men). Juror #8 represents caution and consideration in the jury room. The character does not demonstrate some of the same logical flaws as his fellow deliberators: he is depicted as lacking the prejudices, biases, and egotistical self-absorption that prevent the other jurors, at least initially, from considering all of the facts in the case.

In an effort to open the other jurors’ minds to the possibility of the boy’s innocence, Juror #8 takes on an almost aggressive role in trying to sway several of the jurors, particularly Juror #3, “whom he goads and satirizes on occasion to try to show him his own potential for violence that subconsciously prejudices him against the youthful defendant” (Cunningham 115). Juror #3 plays the role of the main antagonist and seems to relish the idea of sending the boy to his death. Along with the virulently racist Juror #10, he represents the darker aspects of human behavior in that jury room, with a furious anger bubbling underneath the surface throughout most of the movie.

Juror #3 fiercely maintains his verdict of “guilty” even in the face of the other jurors’ conviction that the boy is innocent. In a narcissistic appropriation of the case in his own mind, Juror #3 equates the boy on trial with his own estranged son—his prejudice is born from his relationship with the child who rejected him and the “barely suppressed violence” (116) that drives his behavior in the jury room. Ultimately, his belief in the boy’s guilt has little to do with the facts of the case.

It is not until he feels—and accepts—the shame of his own failings as a father that Juror #3 is able to vote logically as opposed to emotionally and irrationally. Juror #8 “wins” in the end because he is able to subtly manipulate the other eleven men into looking at the case in a similarly logical manner. In this way, he is also the most Machiavellian character in the film, astutely manipulating the other characters into deliberation by observing their behavior carefully in the jury room.

Juror #8 couches his decision in the language of negotiation, thus carefully avoiding an outright claim that he truly thinks the boy is innocent: “He explained that he voted ‘not guilty’ not because he is sure of the defendant's innocence, but because he wished to discuss the case objectively, without prejudging the defendant. This minimized the group’s antagonism and alienation” (Evirgen 181). Juror #8 employs his observational skills to determine each juror’s underlying bias and motivation, and then uses that knowledge to “marginalize … his most vocal enemies”—Jurors #3 and #10—and “shift … the dependence of ‘in-the-middle’ jurors to himself” as opposed to them (181).

He systematically destroys each man’s preconceived notions of the boy’