New York, 1957.
In the very hot day of summer, a trial begins in the witness of the judge, and twelve jurors. The judge is needing a verdict from twelve jurors for the first-degree murder. Twelve jurors leave the jury room, go to another room, and the debate between twelve jurors is now started.
After the short conversation about the trial, they now start to discuss the case in detail.
The 4th juror suggests people to vote first to know which side that people are standing for, “guilty or not guilty”. There are eleven jurors rise their hand for “guilty”, and there is only one person who vote for “not guilty”, that is the 8th juror.
At first, people are very confuse with the 8th juror decision. 8th juror starts to say his reason.
“He’s is sixteen years old…this boy’s been kicked around all his life. You know—living in a slum, his mother dead since he was nine. He spent a year and a half in an orphanage while his father served a jail term for forgery. That’s not a very good head start.” The 8th juror said.
Unfortunately, the 8th juror reason is getting deprecated by 10th, 3rd, and other jurors.
The 3rd juror starts to talk his opinion: I have no personal feelings about this. I’m talking facts. Number one. Let’s take the old man who lived on the second floor right underneath the room where the murder took place. At ten minutes after twelve on the night of the killing he heard loud noises in the apartment upstairs. He said it sounded like a fight. Then he heard the kid shout out, “I’m gonna kill you.” A second later he heard a body fall and he ran to the door of his apartment, looked out and saw the kid running down the stairs and out of the house. Then he called the police. They found the father with a knife in his chest. The 3rd opinion is agreed by many jurors except 8th juror. They try to change other jurors perspective by giving evidence, and reasonable doubt.
After argue for a long time, the 8th juror suggests to take the vote again. At this time, there are just eleven slips of vote, 8th juror still stands for his decision. However, 11th juror is now changing his perspective. Now, they have to discuss again for the final verdict. To get the final verdict, all twelve jurors have to agree in one side, “guilty”, or “not guilty”.
They start to talk about the witnesses, their evidence, and how much reliable they are.
In the third vote, the vote is now changing, there are six to six right now. After the discussion, 2nd, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th, and 11th jurors vote for “not guilty”.
They give a reasonable doubt. 8th juror states, “An important point for the prosecution was the fact that the boy, after he claimed he was at the movies during the hours the killing took place, couldn’t name the pictures he saw or the stars who appeared in them.” the 8th juror says that the defendant remembered the movies in court. He named them correctly and he named the stars who played in them.
They are now in the hung jury. If they don’t have a verdict soon, twelve jurors have to give up this case, and the judge will let the new jurors come to solve this case.
They continue discuss, and try to give more reasonable doubt for “not guilty”.
There are currently change to eleven for “not guilty”, and only one for guilty. Only 3rd juror is still standing for “guilty”. However, 3rd is no longer can refuse the obvious doubt, so he gives his final verdict.
Finally, twelve jurors have their verdict for this case. The verdict for the defendant is “not guilty”.
They leave the jury room, and lock the door.
Locked.
Part 2: Personal Response
I’m not recommending this play for high school student because I think this play is not useful enough for student to study it. The play just talk about a trial, specifically twelve jurors. They are discussing a very long time to find the final verdict for a murder case. I think this play is more reasonable for secondary student than for high school student. For high school student, I personally require the play that give me more suspense, interested, useful information.
This play is focusing more about characters such as each juror has their perspective, their opinion, their point of view about the evidence that has given. There are some small conflict between twelve jurors, I say it “small” because they are all have different opinions, and they are trying to change other people opinions, that make them have a lot of fights. I read the whole play, but it is not make me interested in it because I think the plot is quite boring. It is just begin with discussion, start a debate, change perspective, and then have a verdict. It is kind of fundamental.
I need some factors for the play that can use for high school student. First factor is the play should focus on all seven elements of fiction such as character, conflict, themes, plot, setting, point of view, and plot. Second factor is it should focus more in literary devices, in this play I just see some common devices such as metaphor, simile,…I require the new literary devices that I never new before.
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