12 Angry Men

Written By Reginald Rose

In Reginald Rose’s “12 Angry Men” the 8th juror is very persistent in getting people to understand why he believes the defendant is not guilty. During the first vote “There were eleven votes for guilty. [It is not] easy for [him] to raise [his] hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first”(12). The 8th juror is not sure if the defendant is not guilty but he has enough evidence to doubt he murdered his father. The 8th juror always seeks the truth and is very open-minded. He proposes the idea that the “two witnesses were the entire case for the prosecution, [and] supposed they were wrong”(20). If this idea had not been put into the jury's mind they would have never reenacted the eyewitness's story. Through the reenactment, the jury realized there were many holes in the witness's story. Without the 8th juror, the defendant would have been sentenced to the electrical chair without deliberation.