In the movie, 12 Angry Men, 12 jurors are left to decide the fate of a young Puerto Rican man who has been accused of killing his father. If found guilty, he will be sentenced to death automatically, per New York’s laws in the 1950’s. The prosecution gave the jurors many points of evidence throughout the trial to convict the young boy, thought the accuracy and the validity is up in the air. Many of the jurors are biased whether through race of the boy, or from his upbringing. Throughout the movie, the audience watches the jurors understanding of the concept of reasonable doubt evolve through the development of their deliberations and discussion about the case. This movie touches on the aspects on what contributes to the concept of reasonable doubt and the steps a jury should take to make a decision. In the start of the movie, many of the men want to give a guilty verdict just because they don’t want to be there. Because of one juror, the boy gets a true and fair trial. Reasonable doubt, per Florida state law is defined as “not a mere possible doubt, a speculative, imaginary or forced doubt. Such a doubt must not influence you to return a verdict of not guilty if you have an abiding conviction of guilt. On the other hand, if, after carefully considering, comparing and weighing all the evidence, there is not an abiding conviction of guilt, or, if, having a conviction, it is one which is not stable but one which wavers and vacillates, then the charge is not proved beyond every reasonable doubt and you must find the defendant not guilty because the doubt is reasonable” (Florida Supreme Court).
In the play turned movie, it starts with the jury voting 11-1 in favor of a guilty verdict. This is due to many reasons, one being that Juror 3 blatantly comes out saying that the boy is guilty because all youths are criminals who are not well off. Juror 7 just wants the rest of the jurors to come to a consensus fast because he would like to go to a baseball game later in that day. The only juror who is not in favor of a guilty verdict is Juror 8 who wants to give the boy a fair trial, and believes the men should look at all of the evidence that is provided to them.
To try to sway Juror 8 to the guilty verdict, the rest of the 11 men decide to go around and share their reasoning and beliefs for why the accused is guilty. Three of the jurors say their reasoning for being in favor of a guilty verdict is because of the boy’s race and his life growing up in poor circumstances, and that those two points alone should show that he is guilty. The evidence that the prosecution has given is that of the boy’s arguments with his father that are recurrent, and that there were two “eyewitnesses”. Juror 8 does not believe that the evidence is strong enough and he then pulls out a knife that is a replica of the “rare” knife the prosecution says was used in the murder. This knife was bought on a corner store and shows that the prosecution’s evidence towards that only the boy could have committed the murder is now not as valid since Juror 8 was able to buy a replica. Juror 8 decides that he will step out of the vote, and if all vote for a guilty verdict then he will also join them and the discussion will be over. The vote occurs and now another juror goes against the rest of them and believes the boy is not guilty because he wants to discuss more. This is the point where the development of the idea of reasonable doubt starts becoming more solidified and discussed. In this process the jurors start to acknowledge the doubts that they have about the case, and about the “reliable” eyewitnesses that the prosecution brought forward. These eyewitnesses were an older gentleman and a woman who is doubted to have heard or saw what they said they did. They discuss the doubt of if either them could have really heard or saw the action in question, and with the commentary of Juror 9 who is elderly like one of the eyewitnesses, he pulls over two more jurors to the not guilty side. As the deliberations continue, the audience can see that as the jurors delve deeper into the conflicting parts of the evidence given to them, they also begin to be more comfortable with expressing their doubt and they begin to start treating each other better. With the evidence not being as clear cut as the 12 men thought it was at the beginning, the idea of a possibility that the boy did not commit the murder becomes stronger. Though they have not pulled all of the jurors to the not guilty side, the audience can see that many of the jurors are having a harder time agreeing that the boy is guilty for murdering his father.
Another part of evidence that is questioned is how the boy, who was shorter than his father, was able to make the stab from above in a downward direction. The jurors discuss, and one of the jurors opens up about his past and explains that the angle would be hard for the boy. Because of the jurors openness to explain, some jurors also find fault and doubt in the ability of the boy to stab his father in this manner. Juror 9 out of the blue remembers that the woman who was the second eye witness had marks on her nose from where glasses would be, and was trying to mislead the jury by not wearing them in the trial. Since most do not wear glasses to bed, they realize there was a slim chance that she did see what she said she did. The men are now realizing how flimsy the evidence the prosecution gave was, and if they had not discussed would have never been noticed. With this discovery, Juror 10 finally agrees to a not guilty verdict which leaves one last juror. The last of the 12 to agree to having enough doubt that the young boy committed the murder is Juror 3, who stays in his belief that the boy has to be guilty. He sticks with his belief that all youth are criminals, until a photo of his son falls out of his wallet. Juror 3 breaks out in tears, and says not guilty. There is now a fully unanimous decision of not guilty and the men leave the room.
Over the course of the film, the men dig in to the notion of reasonable doubt. Though reasonable doubt is not saying that there is no way that this crime could have been committed, nor is it saying that there is every single chance that it happened, it is showing that there is a possibility and enough of a possibility for there to be a guilty or not guilty verdict. At first all the men but one viewed the case as having enough evidence that it had to have been the boy. Though there was enough evidence to convict the boy of murdering his father, what they didn’t look at in the beginning was that of the validity of the evidence. As the men slowly began to actually go through the evidence, the testimonies, and what was said to have happened, they realize one by one that this case is not as rock solid as they thought it was previously. Though pulling out a similar knife that he had bought to match what was used as the murder weapon was against what the jurors were allowed to do, that action was the first step in the men’s concept of reasonable doubt. The fact that the prosecution said that the knife was rare, when in fact it was not, and then for their evidence to be proved inaccurate gave some jurors the ability to start to doubt the rest of the evidence. The men realize that they have enough of a doubt of the evidence, of how his father was killed, and of the two witnesses that they can’t give a guilty verdict. They proved to themselves that there was a strong enough chance that what the witnesses recounted to the court could have possibly be incorrect, and that was the finalizing understanding of reasonable doubt.
These men not only grew their concept of reasonable doubt, but their concept of eachother. They started seeing each other as individuals, as people, rather than just 11 other men they had to be in a room with. As their concept of what reasonable doubt grew, their ability to understand each other and the other points of views in the room grew. By the end of the movie, they cared for each other. This is shown by them talking outside, and saying goodbye to each other. The 12 jurors expanded their knowledge and showed that just because there is a lot of evidence that could prove something occurred, that the evidence could also show that something did not occur. Reasonable doubt is not that there is a one hundred percent doubt that something happened, but enough of a doubt that the jury cannot return a verdict of the opposite.