12 Angry Men A Study on Communication Skills

V S Narendranath Reddy (Section U - 15P174)

The core of the movie is a decision to be taken by an impartial jury on the conviction of an 18-year
old boy charged for the murder of his father. After all the evidence was presented, the jury cast their
votes and only juror no. 8 votes not guilty whereas his peers all vote guilty. Seeing as the jury has
to be unanimous before handing in the verdict, a discussion among the jurors ensues. In the
discussion, the barriers faced by each juror are the evidence presented by the prosecution, either too
little or too much experience of being on a jury, projecting personal matters and views onto the case,
inability to either communicate or support their stand with the evidence presented, self-importance,
indifference, prejudice over one aspect of the defendant and lack of seriousness. In the next part of
this study, I shall try to explain how juror no. 8 tried and overcame these barriers to convince other
jurors.
Juror no. 8: The sole juror who voted not guilty based on the fact that he had reasonable doubt
about the evidence presented by the prosecution and explains the childhood of the boy in the first part
of the discussion, asking others to discuss a bit more before handing the verdict.
Juror no. 9: An old man who was convinced by the evidence presented. Juror no. 8 presents his
motive for voting not guilty and explains that the evidence of a unique knife used in the murder is
wrong. Juror no. 8 does so by bringing out an identical knife, which he claims to have bought at a
pawn shop in the neighbourhood of the boy. The old man respects the motives of juror no. 8 and votes
not guilty in the next vote.
Juror no. 5: A nervous man who appears to go with the flow and reluctant to explain the motive
behind his stand. Juror no. 8 convinces him by casting doubt on the evidence of the old man below
the boys apartment hearing the murder take place. Citing that the apartments are near the railway
lines and that based on the timeline established from the presented evidence, the train was passing by
the old mans window and he could not have heard the fight between the boy and the father clearly.
Juror no. 9 also assists by saying that maybe the old man was only looking to be heard by someone
after a long life and hence made himself believe that he heard the murder taking place after the fight.
Seeing so many aspects of the evidence being called into doubt, juror no. 5 changes his vote.
Juror no. 11: A watch maker by profession and a calm individual, also convinced by the evidence
presented in the hearing. After hearing juror no. 8 cast doubt on seemingly perfect evidence, he starts
to analyse the evidence himself and notices the discrepancy of how the boy was arrested around 3
a.m. in the morning whereas the murder took place just after midnight. He questions if the boy
murdered his father at 12:10 a.m., why would he come back to the house knowing he would be
caught? An argument ensue, where some believe that the boy came back to clean his fingerprints off
the knife and that the boy probably thought no one was going to notice the murder till late in the
evening. Again, these points are refuted by juror no. 8 saying that since the woman from across the
street was screaming, the boy would have realized that someone noticed what had happened. Many

12 Angry Men A Study on Communication Skills

V S Narendranath Reddy (Section U - 15P174)
more points are put forth, post which another vote is taken and juror no. 11 votes not guilty due to
there being reasonable doubt now.
Juror no. 2: A man who has never been a part of a jury before, unable to support his stand with
evidence and not able to express himself well.
Juror no. 6: A calm man who believes that a clear motive is the most important aspect of a case and
that the boy had clear motive based on the history of abusive relationship between the boy and his
father.
Juror no. 8 raises a point of the testimony, where the old man says that it took a maximum of only 15
seconds to reach the entrance of his flat from his bed in the bedroom to see the boy going down the
stairs. Juror no. 8 disagrees with this saying that as the old man had a bad leg due to a previous stroke,
he could not have reached the entrance so fast and asks for the plans of the apartment to examine. He
then demonstrates by rearranging the chairs in the room according to the measurements in the
apartment plan and pretending to walk with a bad leg in a hurry, which shows that it took him 41
seconds to do so. When juror no. 3 violently disagrees with juror no.8, the latter baits him by calling
him a sadist, which results in juror no. 3 emotionally shouting Ill kill you. Juror no. 3 responds
calmly by asking if juror no. 3 really means to kill him as he just shouted so. This results in juror no. 2
and juror no. 6 changing their votes to not guilty.
Juror no. 1: Assumes the position of leader/mediator of the jury as soon as the discussion starts and
supports his stand using the evidence presented.
Juror no. 7: A callous man who does not listen to others, sees himself as more important than others,
with prejudice against foreigners he shows towards juror no. 11 and feels that going to a game more
important than the jurys verdict.
Juror no. 12: An advertising company employee with an easy going attitude, indifferent attitude and
an easily influenced person. He changes his vote twice in the course of the discussion influenced by
the strong persuasion of juror no. 3.
When the jury was stuck on how to proceed, juror no. 2 asks to see the knife and expresses his doubt
over the angle of penetration of the knife. Juror no. 3 demonstrates that it is indeed possible for a
shorter person (the boy) to stab the taller person (the father) in the chest in a downward angle.
However, this results in juror no. 5 saying that the way of handling a switchblade, which is the murder
weapon, depends on the proficiency of the user. As the evidence presented by the prosecution says
that the boy was proficient with a switchblade, juror no. 5 demonstrates the proficient way of handling
the blade, which is completely opposite to how the victim was killed. Hearing this argument, juror no.
1 and juror no. 12 change their votes to not guilty citing reasonable doubt. Juror no. 7, however,
only changes his vote to suit his needs and not with any logical stand behind it.

12 Angry Men A Study on Communication Skills

V S Narendranath Reddy (Section U - 15P174)
Juror no. 4: The most analytical guy in the jury, he initially displays prejudice against people from
slum background. He bases his stand on logical arguments, believing firmly that emotions do no play
any part on decisions taken by individuals. Juror no. 8 convinces him by methodically disproving
each point. For example, he asks if juror no. 4 remembers the movie he watched 3 days back and who
starred in it. When the latter fails to do so, juror no. 8 asks if he could not remember even normally,
how could the boy who was under intense emotional stress do so.
Juror no. 10: A contrary old man from the beginning, he has extreme prejudice against slum dwellers
and a clear lack of respect towards other people. When he initially insults people from unfortunate
neighbourhoods and backgrounds, juror no. 5 retaliates saying he is from such a neighbourhood. He
keeps trying to interrupt when other juror state their reasons for changing their stands. When juror no.
1, juror no. 7 and juror no. 12 change their votes, he vehemently insults and degrades people from
slums, which results in a silent protest from all the other jurors causing juror no. 10 to lose his face
and introspect himself.
Later on, juror no. 4 points out that the strongest evidence in the case is the eye witness testimony of
the woman across the street. Here, juror no. 9 notices the spectacle marks on juror no. 4s nose and
points out that the woman had the same marks on her nose. Juror no. 8 then proposes that maybe the
woman saw only a blur, as the woman was in bed when the murder took place and she could not have
logically went to bed with her spectacles on. This argument convinces juror no. 4 and juror no. 10,
who change their votes to not guilty.
Juror no. 3: A man who claims to have been on many juries till date, he fails to prove this in the
discussion. He is the most excitable man and readily resorts to shouting to convey his message. He
blindly propagates his stand based on the evidence, while denouncing anyone who changes their vote
without thinking about the reasons why they did so. He projects and overlaps his own personal
matters (that of his own son) onto the case. When he is the only one standing against the other jurors,
he irrationally rants that he has a right to make his own stand. However, when juror no. 8 asks him for
the reasoning behind his stand he doesnt know how to do so and again reverts to saying that evidence
is clear despite the doubts cast over the conclusions by the other. His communication skills were
rudimentary and his impartial thinking questionable, which can be observed when he tears up the
photograph of his son due to an event of the past between him and his son. In the end, however, he
agrees with the rest of the jurors that there is reasonable doubt and changes his vote to not guilty.
The lesson learned from this movie is that, while people always carry their prejudices, personality
traits and emotions into their body language and verbal communication, it is possible to communicate
what you want to by being calm, clear spoken and logical in nature. Throughout the movie, juror no. 8
perceived the traits of various jurors and made an effort to respond to make them understand in their
own way.