12 Angry Men

12 Angry Men

12 Angry Men depicts how a jury of twelve men must examine the evidence presented at the trial of a young boy accused of murdering his father. The evidence brought forth in the trial is the testimony of an old man who lives in the apartment about the boy’s, a switchblade knife, the boy’s sketchy alibi, and the eyewitness testimony of a woman who lives across from the boy’s apartment building. With the evidence making the boy appear guilty, a single juror questions the accuracy of the evidence and tries to implant reasonable doubt within the other jurors.

The testimony of the old man that lives in the apartment about the boy’s seems to be believable. The old man testified that he had heard what sounded like a fight coming from the boy’s apartment and heard the boy tell his father that he was going to kill him. Furthermore, the old man that says that he heard a body hit the floor, and when he made it to the door, he saw the boy running down the stairs. As realistic as the old man’s testimony sounds, juror number eight questions the old man’s accuracy. The first point the juror makes is that the old man has a bum leg. The juror demonstrates how long it would take the old man to get to the door dragging his leg. This demonstration proves that the old man could not have made it to the door in the amount of time he proclaimed in his testimony. In addition, juror number eight recalls another testimony given in court. A woman stated that she witnessed the murder through the two last cars of a train. Giving the amount of time it takes a train to pass a given point and the extremely loud noise the train makes the old man, more likely than not, could not hear what was occurring in the downstairs apartment as well as he declared. The juror who questioned the old man’s testimony provided some reasonable doubt about the old man’s credibility.

The switchblade knife that was used to stab the boy’s father was considered an unquestionable piece of evidence. Many things were bestowed upon the jury during the trial to support the assumption that the knife belonged to the boy. Evidence that the boy purchased the same day of the murder, friends testified seeing the boy with the switchblade, and the pawn shop owner affirmed that he had never seen a switchblade like the one the boy purchased before, therefore indicating that the switchblade rare or one of a kind. What’s more, the only defense for the boy was that he claimed he had lost it that night on his way to a movie. Juror number eight once again was uncertain about the fact that it was assumed that the murder weapon did belong to the boy. In the heat of the discussion of the switchblade juror number eight pulled a switchblade that looked exactly like the murder weapon from his pocket. He then stated that while walking around the boy’s neighborhood he stopped at a pawnshop, different from the one the boy purchased his knife, and purchased the switchblade. This, yet again, supplied the jurors with reasonable doubt.

When the boy was questioned by police officers and asked about his whereabouts the boy replied he had been at the theatre, but he could not remember the names of the films or the stars of the films. Juror number eight considered that the fact that when the boy was