12 Rational Men

A Review of – 12 Angry Men through the perspective of Legal Psychology

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Samarth Jain

6/26/20246 min read

photo of white staircase
photo of white staircase

Critically acclaimed and well-crafted films generally have an inconceivable scene in the middle which changes the entire trajectory of the movie. In Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men, this change is a recurring event. Every dialogue, pause and silence has been such deliberately and meticulously placed to humble and suspend the viewer’s preconceived beliefs and the natural human need for clarity. In a case of premeditated murder, a jury consisting of twelve members is put to the test, when they must decide on the guilt of an 18-year-old, the decision which will either send him to the electric chair to meet his death or allow him a life of dignity. Through this review there is an attempt to showcase how even the most insignificant variables impacts the way we perceive the functioning of the law, people, and its effects on society.

"Perception" describes the mental activities that process and interpret all our sensory input, or experiences. We actively interpret the information we are given to give it meaning to ourselves through the process of perception. Our age, cultural background, expectations, emotions, specific expertise, and other factors all affect how we interpret sensations. Since the film doesn’t allow us to see the events personally, we are at the mercy of making a judgement based on the perceptions of jurors, each different from the other and having different lived experiences.

“Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality”. The protagonist is an advocate for rationalism with his famous statement – “I don’t know”, and asking for Some from the jury couldn’t allow themselves to move away from their beliefs. While one juror felt “lucky” to get a murder case, another had no intention of staying long, often cracking jokes. When the Jurors enter the room, without the presence of the judge over their head, they all relax, light cigarettes, make shallow conversations, momentarily subsuming the importance of their positions. which only digresses as the movie goes on. Few jurors are also showcased as being highly opinionated and stubborn individuals, disregarding and trampling any opposing views and interpreting evidence only to confirm their own beliefs. This can be shown when the juror clearly having a racial bias, states that slums are breeding ground for criminals and liars, insinuating it as a culture characteristic. The same juror later asks everyone to believe the testimony of woman eyewitness of the event and is questioned on his myside bias sarcastically by Henry Fonda on how he thought the child is a born liar but the woman’s words living in the same locality is believable. Confirmation bias is deep rooted in the juror overlapping one bias over another as he seems fit.

Bias clusters seems to be a subtheme in the film. A substantial body of research, indicates that human cognitive capacities are often overwhelmed by the informational complexity of the environment, leading to prejudice and suboptimal decision-making and information processing abilities. The minds have an acute desire for familiarity. Comprehending the world entails lowering it to the human experience and with our individual comprehension. While this evolutionary adaption helps saving us from absurdity, in times of importance, it can be a difficult hurdle to cross. A juror seen to be having a rough relationship with his own child comments that children are “rotten” how when he was younger, he used to call his father “sir”, and that he wanted to make a “man” out of his son. His judgement of the case is affected by the same Generation Bias. This ageism is also reflected by how the opinions of the older juror are paid no heed and considered unimportant. The racial bias is a constant throughout the film questioning the background of the accused. Humans for collective functioning, group with people having similar background and opinions. Changing people’s beliefs is already a difficult task, and such affinity bias affects the juror’s judgement not only towards the accused but with each other too. When the juror brought up in a slum himself confirms that he finds the accused guilty, the juror earlier questioning his intentions, now praises him for not being like “the others”. These biases can also be seen in witness testimonies.

The case which seemed open and shut, was realized to be based on two questionable witnesses and circumstantial evidence. The knowledge of the witnesses is not an exact science. Witnesses, especially in court are malleable to lawyers and can make mistakes. The old man who lived downstairs heard a fight and a body hit the floor, heard someone say, “I’m going to kill you”, ran to the door and allegedly saw the accused going downstairs. The protagonist makes excellent points to refute his testimony. Could the old man have perfectly identified a shouting voice, especially through the El train passing? The juror also undermines the old man’s time bias, assumption and recall by showing he couldn’t have possibly reached the door in fifteen seconds with a weak leg. I do not agree with the older juror’s argument that the old man gave a falsified testimony to be noticed and have a moment in the limelight, since that is sheer assumption and stereotyping that all older gentlemen have a need to be kept in attention. Such argument is hearsay and based on minimal probability. One argument that can be stated is the fact that sometimes when we recite a story with an inherent bias to make the facts organized, we unknowingly add a fact of our own. Recite such story enough time and one can start believing it due to misinformation effect. The woman across the street allegedly saw the killing, but her testimony is also quite questionable on the ground of seeing the incident through the windows of a train, the time frame and her eyesight creating reasonable doubt. The film does and important job of reminding viewers, the meaning of reasonable doubt, it’s value in the legal system and specially in such grave cases, an accused cannot be sentenced based on reasonable doubt alone. The accused could not remember the names of the films he saw, when asked by the detectives in front of his dead father. Many argue that such forgetfulness is the mind repressing is as argued by Sigmond Freud “the mind pushes into the unconscious a memory of a traumatic experience. This is also known as 'motivated forgetting'.”

The film raises some important questions. Does the background and difficult early life of the accused, in case guilty allow for leeway in punishment in a society where punishment is foremost seen as retribution. The protagonist when alone with the non-guilty opinion, in a hail mary, gambles on a secret ballot, hoping someone would change their vote. What if no one changed their vote? Is the value of life so minimal that one must gamble only to make oneself heard and have a discussion? The moralities of lawyers are also questioned. The accused being poor could not afford a decent lawyer and was possibly given one from the state who made no effort to prove the innocence of his client. In an ideal world, can lawyers who generally only care about winning, put the life of their clients at stake, and why is a birth right such as fair trial only given to people with enough money to afford legal services.

It is often the smallest things which impact our decision making. The case is on the hottest day of the year, the jurors are in formal attire, the fan conveniently does not work for the first half on the film, the day is called “muggy” or warm and humid. Our irritability to the weather often tends to make our decisions irrational to leave the situation as quick as possible. In the film some jurors make a want for leaving quickly given how hot it is forgetting the case at hand. Another variable which impacts judgement is hunger. A jury’s decision-making process may be influenced by their physical condition, such as hunger or exhaustion, according to a bias called the “hungry judge effect”. Even such insignificant variables can heavily impact group rationale.

The film while attempts to show the truth of the legal system, still requires having some entertainment value, due to which some parts of the movie seem slightly stretched and fictionalized. Incidents such as the protagonist having the duplicate of the knife in question, the overboard deliberation of every detail of the case which generally does not occur. Over rationalization in my opinion also leads to irrational judgement. But the movie, in its timeless fashion shows a mirror to society through twelve beautifully written characters showing our flaws and a path keeping alive hope in humanity in a search for the utopian ideal.

Footnotes

1) KEBBELL, M. R., MULLER, D. A., & MARTIN, K. (2010). Understanding and Managing Bias. In G. Bammer (Ed.), Dealing with Uncertainties in Policing Serious Crime (pp. 87–98). ANU Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24hbrf.10

2) Stanovich, K. E., West, R. F., & Toplak, M. E. (2013). Myside Bias, Rational Thinking, and Intelligence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(4), 259–264. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44318672

3) Bertrand Russell quote. (n.d.). A-Z Quotes. https://www.azquotes.com/quote/346806

4) Camus, A. (n.d.-b). Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus. https://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil360/16.%20Myth%20of%20Sisyphus.pdf

5) Read, D., & Van Leeuwen, B. L. (1998). Predicting Hunger: The effects of appetite and delay on choice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 76(2), 189–205. https://doi.org/10.1006/obhd.1998.2803

6) Kapardis, A. (2010). PSYCHOLOGY AND LAW: a CRITICAL INTRODUCTION (THIRD EDITION). CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS. https://perpus.univpancasila.ac.id/repository/EBUPT180491.pdf

7) [C.H] FUnNy ShOrTs [×100] Maza THE Entertainment. (2022, June 23). 12 Angry Men Full Movie [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsC_hzuNBUo