Oral Question Assignment on ‘Twelve Angry Men.’

1. What are the judge’s instructions to the jury?

‘Twelve angry men by Reginald Rose’ is a murder case trial play that shows a boy convicted of murdering his father (Sergel 1-63). The case gets presented through the judge and 12 jurors, who are responsible for analyzing the case based on the facts presented in the court. The play is essential in revealing the influential role played by the jurors in court to administer solutions based on the facts. The role of the jurors in court is offered through the instructions made by the judge at the beginning of the play. The judge offered some instructions that acted as the basis of what the jurors had to discuss before the court decided on the case.

After the court and the jurors have heard the murder case, the judge explains to the court that murder cases are severe charges in court (Sergel 9). The judge then instructs the jurors to sit and make efforts to separate the fancy stories presented in court and separate them to develop the facts essential in administering justice. The judge instructs the jurors if the jurors find reasonable doubt in the case the convict should be declared not guilty. The judge also instructs the jurors to declare the victim guilty if there are no reasonable doubts about the case. The judge also instructs the jurors to get honest and thoughtful through the case and develop a unanimous decision.

After the judge makes the instructions, the jurors walk out of the courtroom and head to a room to analyze the case. The jurors knew they had a life to protect and a life to administer justice. The court decision became the responsibility of the jurors; thus they had to generate the facts from the court proceedings. The unanimous decision that the jurors would develop would get used to offering judgment to the case, whether to prove the convict guilty or not guilty.

2. What information is revealed about the crime to the reader before the first vote is taken?

The murder case gets examined by the 12 jurors after the judge makes instructions that the jurors should offer an anonymous decision on the case. The jurors assemble in a room where they begin with personal issues before discussing the case. Foreman tells a story of a convict who was released after being proven innocent, and years later, the man was found guilty, but the man was set free, and the case could not have been reviewed. A vote was to be cast between the jurors, but the murder information was first revealed.

Jurors Ten and Seven reveal the information about the murder case before a vote is cast by Foreman (Sergel 12-13). Juror Seven reveals that the victim bought the knife used for the murder of the knight when the murder occurred. Juror Ten reveals that the victim lost the knife before the murder occurred, which resembles that the victim could not have performed the act. Jurors Two and Ten reveal that the boy killed his father with the knife he had purchased that night. The conversation by the jurors thus provides information on how the boy conducted the murdery before the vote got cast.

Foreman is responsible for leading the case by asking the jurors to take seats, especially Eight, who was at the window. The role of the Forman in leading the discussion is thus presented before the vote is cast. The Foreman asks for suggestions on how they should conduct the situation, and the jurors agree to take on a vote. The Foreman then conducts the vote to gain data on the people who agreed the boy was guilty and if the boy was not guilty. The Foreman then conducts the vote.

3. What is Eight’s reason for voting not guilty?

After the votes are cast, 11 jurors vote that the boy is guilty, but juror Eight votes not guilty. The other jurors, especially juror three, get upset about the one vote, considering it a waste of time. The 11 jurors believe that it was obvious the kid had killed his father, making him guilty. The jurors explain why they voted their choice, but they offer juror three to explain why the boy is not guilty.

Juror Eight says that the boy is innocent until proven guilty when asked why he voted not guilty (Sergel 18). Juror eight starts to question why some of the jurors voted guilty, but the jurors had no reasons for the boy being guilty. Juror Eight reveals to the other jurors that they should examine the facts presented in court to validate that the witnesses were presenting right. Juror Eight begins by asking how the women witness could have seen the boy murder his father through the windows of an elevated train (Sergel 19). Juror Eight’s main argument was to examine the case deeply since he had reasonable doubt and thus could not easily vote guilty, placing the life of a possible innocent kid at stake. The fact that the defendant does not have to open his mouth makes juror Eight doubt that the kid could be innocent (Sergel 18).

The explanation made by juror Eight proves that he was much more concerned with the reality of the case than the testimonies presented. Juror Eight aimed to analyze and present facts from the fiction as instructed by the judge. Juror Eight’s disagreement on the boy’s possibility of being innocent leads to further analysis of the case to examine if there were reasonable doubts that could make the boy not guilty.

4. What is the dramatic climax of Act I?

Juror Eight analyzes the knife used to kill the father, as revealed in the court (Sergel 23). The jurors ask for the knife used in the murder, and the jurors agree that the knife is strange and no one has seen such a knife before. The jurors, apart from Eight, agree that the boy purchased the knife and went on to kill his father. Juror Eight then begins to explain why the kid may not have used the knife. The climax of Act I ends dramatically with a vote where Eight excludes himself.

Juror Eight presents a similar knife before the author’s jurors which he purchased in the nearby shop where the kid leaves (Sergel, 24). Juror Eight then explains that there could be a possibility that the kid had dropped the knife as he sneaked into the movie. Most of the jurors disagree with the claim as they point out some of the witnesses like the woman who claimed to have seen the act and the old man downstairs who claims to have heard the killing. Juror Eight then says that the rest of the jurors excluding Eight should conduct a secret vote and in the event of the eleven jurors voting guilty, the jurors would have reached an anonymous decision that the boy is guilty.

Act one ends with the votes being cast secretly having juror Eight being excluded from the vote (Sergel 26). The act ends with the Foreman counting the votes cast by the eleven jurors. The dramatic act is that one of the votes from the eleven jurors is ‘not guilty’ thus implying that the jurors need to continue with the case analysis. Seven says that they have a right to know the one vote that counted ‘not guilty’ which marks the end of Act I.

Work Cited

Sergel, S. L. Twelve angry men by Reginald Rose. The Dramatic Publishing Company Chicago. Pp. 1-63. Retrieved April 1, 2023, from www.umass.edu/legal/Hilbink/250/12Angry.pdf