Reginald Rose's script for Twelve Angry Men strengthens our understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. jury system by illuminating the flaws in human nature that can lead to a miscarriage of justice while also offering hope for the emergence of jurors of principle who will summon the moral courage necessary to go against a majority seeking to decide in a different direction the fate of the accused.
Rose's script was well-written, depicting the efforts of twelve individuals tasked with determining the guilt or innocence of a young Hispanic man on trial for murdering his own father. It is instructive that Rose was inspired to write his script by his own experiences as a juror in a criminal trial. As he was quoted as saying from a 1997 interview with regard to his participation on a jury:
''It knocked me out. I was overwhelmed. I was on a jury for a manslaughter case, and we got into this terrific, furious, eight-hour argument in the jury room. I was writing one-hour dramas for 'Studio One' then and I thought, wow, what a setting for a drama.''
While Rose insisted that his script for Twelve Angry Men was entirely fictitious, it almost certainly reflects some of the biases and human dynamics he observed during his duty as a juror. Whether the racial and socioeconomic factors at play in his fictitious jury room mirrored any similar phenomena in the real-life jury on which he served, however, we will likely never know, Rose having passed away in 2002.
Rose's script is particularly useful in terms of studying the U.S. jury system for the dangers it depicts of allowing unchallenged prejudices to prevail. Juror 8 in Twelve Angry Men is the model of informed rational thought who succeeds in convincing the other 11 jurors to change their votes and to acquit the defendant. In order to do so, he must confront those prejudices, especially the biases advanced by Jurors 3 and 10, the first an angry, hostile man whose bitterness is ultimately ascribed to his own dysfunctional relationship with his son and the latter a simple-minded racist whose bias against the Hispanic defendant has entirely skewed his judgement. If there is a flaw to Rose's "jury," it might be Juror 8, the wise, level-headed nonconformist. At the beginning of his script, Rose provides detailed descriptions for each of the 12 jurors, and the description for Juror 8 says it all:
"A quiet, thoughtful, gentle man. A man who sees all sides of every question and constantly seeks the truth. A man of strength tempered with compassion. Above all, a man who wants justice to be done and will fight to see that it is."
Contrast this with his description for Juror 3, the angry, resentful one whose demeanor intimidates the weaker jurors:
"A very strong, very forceful, extremely opinionated man within whom can be detected a streak of sadism. A humorless man who is intolerant of opinions other than his own and accustomed to forcing his wishes and views upon others."
Now, let's look at Rose's description for Juror 5:
"A naïve, very frightened young man who takes his obligations in this case very seriously, but who finds it difficult to speak up when his elders have the floor."
Contrasting a strong, forceful, extremely opinionated juror with a "naive, very frightened young man . . . who finds it difficult to speak up when his elders have the floor" provides Rose's script a very useful mechanism for depicting the actual dynamics that can occur in any gathering, including a jury. A potential weakness in the real-life jury system is the risk of weak-minded jurors being adversely influenced by stronger-willed ones. As Twelve Angry Men progresses, the ability of Juror 3 to intimidate the others begins to disappear. The human dynamics that could have ended in a miscarriage of justice were eventually overtaken by the increasing willingness of other jurors to either come around to Juror 8's perspective on the concept of reasonable doubt, or to switch their decision to "innocent" for the primary purpose of ending the proceedings so that they can move on to other things (recall, for example, Juror 7's admonition at the beginning of the jury deliberations that "This better be fast. I’ve got tickets to The Seven Year Itch tonight"). [Note: The Seven Year Itch was an actual play, later adapted for film, that was very popular at the time]
Twelve Angry Men depicts both the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. jury system in its depiction of the myriad personalities, temperaments, and levels of education that are represented in real-life scenarios. The deliberative process at the heart of the play represents the strengths; the prejudices and misguided priorities that are reflected in some of the jurors represent the weaknesses.
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