> I simply disagree because I find the distortions of jury room and legal realities negligible relative to the good aspects
Fair enough. I think that most people who have ever been near a real courtroom understand that drama set in a courtroom usually departs significantly from the truth. If viewed as a character study which just happens to be set in a jury room, there's a lot of good things that can be said about 12 Angry Men. But it bothers me when I see people who believe these jurors are acting properly.
I think most people understand that #8 (Fonda) going out and buying that knife was wrong, but most don't understand why. In essence, he was presenting his own testimony and evidence for the defense, without giving the people of the community (who have rights and interests at stake here, the right to have their laws enforced) the opportunity to have their say in the matter via a prosecutor's cross examination -- #8 says he bought that knife a short distance from the kid's home, but for all the other jurors know he might have had it custom made at considerable expense.
But as far as the other things? Deciding that the elderly male witness was half mis-remembering, half lying, because he was a lonely old man who wanted to feel important? What actual evidence was presented to even imply that? None, apparently. Only one juror's speculation, floating in the air, utterly disconnected from any facts presented in the case.
Deciding that the female witness was blind as a bat because of marks on her nose? Again, with no actual evidence. For all these jurors knew, she might have been wearing reading glasses and killing time with a paperback novel while waiting to be called to the stand.
Had #5 (Klugman) merely said, "I saw a lot of knife fights growing up, and I never saw someone stab overhand," that would be one thing. But accepting his statement as authoritative that a real knife fighter would never do it that way? Hey, the defense now has its own expert witness right there in the jury room ... and the limits of that witness's expertise have gone utterly untested by cross-examination. Anyone over age ten has known some self-aggrandizing bullshitters, they're quite common, and sometimes they end up on juries.
Regarding the speed with which the old man approached the witness stand as being his best speed? There's no evidence to even imply that. Maybe he could move considerably faster when he's got a good reason to. Put another way, by that logic, if Usain Bolt had been a witness and had walked to the stand normally, they'd conclude he was lying about his Olympic gold medals.
#8's (Fonda) repeated assertions that bizarre scenarios are "possible"? Well, so what? The standard is proof to the exclusion of all reasonable doubt, not all possible doubt. OK, each juror must ultimately define reasonable doubt for himself. But while #8 never presented the cliched argument that the perpetrator could have been the defendant's identical twin from whom he was separated at birth, a twin whom nobody has heard of before or since, at times he came close. That's not reasonable doubt, that's straining at gnats.
The poster I initially replied to, brodee, said earlier in this thread, "Everything [other than #8 buying the knife] was utilizing testimony, items in evidence and evaluating credibility." S/he seems bright enough and means well, but that's just wrong. It seems very noble here, because #8 is campaigning on behalf of a kid who's never got anything like a fair shake before. And I daresay that brodee and other like-minded persons would come to quite different conclusions if #8's shenanigans were in the opposite direction, to obtain the conviction of a defendant where real reasonable doubt existed.
Here's the problem. What happens when people like that end up on real juries? Sometimes bad things. Phil Spector's first trial for killing Lana Clarkson ended in a hung jury, largely because of one such person. In interviews afterward, when he explained his reasons for voting not guilty he nitpicked at meaningless minutiae, applying #8's standard of reasonable doubt. The other jurors reported that even from the first moment of deliberations he had his mind absolutely made up and could not be reasoned with. Was he influenced by this movie? I don't know, but I could easily believe that was the case, that he imagined the heroic Henry Fonda's ghost smiling down from Heaven approvingly as he fought for "justice" during the deliberations.
> I despise [A Few Good Men] for some of the reasons similar to those expressed by others here.
I have a mixed reaction to that movie, largely similar to yours.
> I think Nicholson's Colonel Jessep character made a number of good points about the need for military discipline, and while he was something of an asshole
Something of? "If you haven't gotten a blow job from a superior officer ..." The man WAS an asshole! :)
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BullSchmidt (3189)
3 years ago
> I'd rather have somebody like him overseeing our defense than frivolous jagoffs like the Navy lawyers who seemed to me only concerned about their own careers
Well, to be fair, Kaffee (Cruise) had grown up somewhat by the movie's end. But on the main point I agree. Sure, Jessep was an asshole. But more importantly, he was a hardass -- a very desirable quality for a person in his position.
> the overall message was "military guys bad, self-righteous yuppie lawyers good."
Agreed, and the fact that Rob Reiner directed it surely didn't help matters any. It's been a while since I've seen it, but from what I recall the only line officer who was portrayed with any sympathy was Markinson (J. T. Walsh), the one who committed suicide.
> Maybe [12 Angry Men had] an agenda to expose white racism or something, but it wasn't apparent to me.
Yeah, there's that bit where the bigot, #10 (Ed Begley) does his rant (overdone IMO), the rest get up and walk away, then Fonda makes his sanctimonious little speech (not present in the play). The point of that being, it seemed to me, to establish not only that juror's racism but also to establish that the other jurors were not racists.
Another contrast between reality and art ... Attorneys have unlimited "challenges for cause" in jury selection; if they can cite facts which establish that a potential juror cannot be expected to impartially evaluate the case, and if the judge agrees with that assessment, that person does not get on the jury. They also have a limited number of "peremptory challenges" for cases where they don't want a person on the jury but can't cite such a factual reason. And that's good. Intuition is part of human reasoning, and people who strive to be like Mister Spock and ignore their "funny feelings" usually end up regretting it. Well, in the old days prosecutors used those challenges to keep persons of the same race as the defendant off the jury when the defendant was non-White. There are some checks now to prevent that, but those checks are pretty weak and it still happens. But in the 1950s those SCOTUS rulings hadn't happened yet, and the only check on a prosecutor doing this was that the number of peremptory challenges is finite. In 12 Angry Men, it's never explicitly stated what ethnicity the defendant is, nor for #11, the immigrant from Europe (George Voskovec) -- but I think in a real case, the prosecutor would have peremptoried him out of the jury, fearing he'd sympathize with the defendant.
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