Elizabeth Paredes

English III honors

Period 3

3rd and 8th jurors

An ongoing conflict during any play, movie or book keeps the audience entertained and

works to make sure that the plot isn’t just a really long argument with no purpose. In the case of

12 Angry Men the ongoing conflict sets the purpose of the whole jury since the very beginning

by making it clear that there are two sides of the argument, guilty and not guilty. The relationship

between juror number 3 and juror number 8 is crucial since it help the audience to “pick a side”

as the two jurors present their cases. In the case of juror number 3, he was stubborn and irrational

about his opinion, not fully understanding that they had the rest of someone’s life in hands, when

people didn’t agree with him, he felt as if they betrayed him and he chose anger as a last resort.

In the other hand, juror number 8 acted as a civilized person throughout the entire debate, he

urged juror 3 to explain his claim logically and to demonstrate to the rest of the jurors, why he

thought the suspect was guilty. Inevitably, juror number 8 proved to the jury that any claim

against his argument was simply not proven to be true, and therefore, due to lack of evidence

they could not have convicted the suspect; he claims “Nobody has to prove otherwise; innocent

until proven guilty. The burden of proof is on the prosecution. The defendant doesn't have to

open his mouth. That's in the Constitution. (Rose, Act 1). By doing this juror 3 got his main point

across, which was not to convict a man for something that cannot be proven true. The

relationship between the two main jurors, number 3, and number 8 is what kept the play going,

therefore, it is considered the most important aspect of the story.

 Prejudice in Every Conflict

Prejudice sadly has haunted society since the beginning of time, this is perfectly shown in the

play 12 Angry Men, when the audiences witnesses a large portion of the men in the jury, making

choices that were solely based on their own opinions of someone’s identity instead of basing

them off their character and the proofs they had, when they knew that they were deciding on the

future of a human being and the decision that was made in that jury room could send an innocent

(or not) man to jail for the rest of his life. It is certain that the play argues that racism can be a

substantial factor in jury deliberations, among the jury there is one particular man, Juror #10 who

showed to be racist towards Hispanics, which is the ethnicity of the defendant, which led him to

believe that the suspect was guilty simply because of his prejudice against his ethnicity and

launches several hateful accusations about Hispanics. If it had not been for the agreement that the

jury made in the end stating that the man was “innocent until proven guilty” he could have been

convicted due to other people’s opinions about his ethnicity. There were other kinds of prejudice

that the defendant was a victim of; For example, Juror #3 had a strong prejudice on him, simply

for the reason that he reminded him of his own son, and it was easy for him to believe, that if his

son was a bad person (or so he believed), this young man whose life they had in hands, must also

be a bad person. When Juror #3 claims “This kid is guilty. He’s got to burn. We’re letting him

slip through our fingers here.” (Rose, Act 2), it only shows his exasperation to blame someone’s

death on a young man, who resembled his son, as he thought this would bring him some sort of

revenge to his own son. In this play by Reginald Rose, he can observe that out of only 12 men, 2

of them had a compelling prejudice against the defendant, and that the fate of someone’s life ca

be determined purely on the prejudice that other people hold against them.
 Juror #8 as a hero

There is a hero in every story, sometimes it is a Prince Charming, a superhero with powers, or

in the case of the play 12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose, it is. Juror #8 shows character since the

very beginning of the play, when he decided to stand up for in name of the defendant who was

not there to defend himself. He shows the rest of the jury that the approach that was being taken

to make a decision on this case was simply not reasonable enough, and that no man deserves to

go to jail with valid supporting evidence, that proves him to be undoubtedly guilty. Every hero

has a power, and this power is not always an mysterious super power that they’ve gained from a

mistake at a lab, sometimes like in the case of juror #8, his power is his good judgement, and his

caring ways to take this matter into his own hands, by convincing the rest of the jury to make the

right decision. One of the most admirable aspects of Juror #8 is his persuasiveness, he used very

meticulous strategies to get his point across, “Ever since you walked into this room, you've been

acting like a self-appointed public avenger! You want to see this boy die because you personally

want it, not because of the facts! You're a sadist!” (Rose, Act 2). Juror #8 purposely provoked

juror #3, and made said juror threaten him, just to prove that not every time someone says they

wish to do something, it doesn’t mean that they will go through with it. Juror #8 proves to be the

hero of this story by probably saving an innocent man’s life, who could have been sent to prison,

even though there was no way to prove his guilt.