12 angry men Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

12 angry men - Essay Example It is only juror no. 8, who offers a dissenting opinion and queries all the prosecutor’s evidences against the defendant. He goes to an extent of purchasing a knife that is akin to the one presented as murder evidence in a bid to convince fellow jurors that the prosecutor’s claim of â€Å"unique† was misplaced. The dissenting juror finally manages to influence the opinion of the entire jury and drag them into the world of â€Å"reasonable doubt†. However, his reasons seem quite ludicrous. By making his queer judgments about the witnesses and pronouncing outrageous claims to disown them, juror number 8 appears quite bizarre. The juror goes ahead to disown another key witness who heard the crime taking place by asserting the claim that the old man probably made up his story to boost his ego. It is funny how the dissenting juror finally manages to get the other 11 jurors, who were initially convinced that the accused is guilty of murder, into his ship where reasonable doubt dictates all the evidence against the accused. The ruling of the jury is similarly interesting. The jurors unanimously make certain witness and evidence assumptions and conclude that the defendant is not guilty of murder. It is apparent that the other jurors arrive at this conclusion as an escape from looming argume nt with juror number 8. In my opinion, the jury made a big mistake. The defendant should have been held guilty for the offense. Since when has a juror become an investigator in a case over which he presides? When operating in accordance with the law, jurors are barred from performing their own investigations in cases. As such, Juror number 8 should have been substituted with another juror if the other eleven members of the jury had reported him trying to conduct his own investigation. By failing to abide by the requirement of the law, the entire jury appears to have seriously