Law Term Paper on 12 Angry Men

12 Angry Men

Term Paper

I believe that juror 4 had a valid argument for the defendant's guilt because the boy's alibi didn't appear to be honest and reliable when the police officer's questioned him. Juror 4 said that while the boy was at the crime scene he couldn't answer any of the questions asked by the police officers. In court the police deputies said that the boy was trembling, anxious, and vague with his answers. They had reported that while the boy was being questioned he kept looking at his father's dead body and wasn't able to give definite answers to questions like where he was at the time of the murder, the movie he watched, and which actors starred in the movie. These actions are believed to be of a criminal at hand. First they would tell one story, but as the questioning progresses they forget the order of their story and the important facts which the police hope to catch. Ultimately, this would lead the police officers and the jurors to think that the boy has committed the crime because of his inconsistent story and the way he was nervous around the police officers as if he committed the crime and was hiding something from them.

Juror 4 based his decision on the facts provided by the court and didn't bring his morals into his decision making. He continued to believe that the boy should be held accountable for the murder of his father because he didn't believe that the boy had a convincing alibi. Juror 8 tried to convince juror 4 by saying that the boy has just seen his father's dead body and was under emotional stress which made him forget what he was doing and with who he was at the time of the murder. To prove his point juror 8 asked juror 4 what he had done everyday of the week and with whom he spent it. Juror 4 was able to remember what he had done the day before the trial and the day before that day, but wasn't able to answer what he did in the beginning of the week. Juror 8 made his point by saying that juror 4 wasn't under emotional stress but there was no reason to think the boy could remember the movie he saw after seeing his father dead. Even though juror 8 had made a valuable argument, juror 4 still wasn't convinced that the boy was not guilty. Juror 4 considered the woman who saw the murder from her bedroom window across the street through a passing train as solid evidence to prove the boy's guilt. However, as juror 9 points out that the woman had the same impressions on her nose as juror 4 it raises a question about her eye sight. Juror 9 asks juror 4 if he wears his glasses to sleep and juror 4 admits he doesn't and claims that no one does. This personal situation gives a reason for juror 4 to have reasonable doubt about the woman wearing her glasses while she was sleeping and is the source of juror's 4 decisions to change from "guilty" to "not guilty."

This quote means that the founding fathers of our country wrote the constitution to protect the people's