12 Angry Men Decisions

12 Angry Men is a play written by Reginald Rose. The play tells of a sixteen year old boy that was tried for premeditated first degree manslaughter and the twelve men on the jury who discussed the verdict. The unanimous decision ultimately would decide the boy’s fate of life or death. The twelve jurors all had very different and important parts in the discussion of the ruling. Rose incorporated dialogue between Juror 10 and the other jurors to contribute to the idea of prejudice obscuring the truth. The dialogue of Juror 10 and his remarks about “those people” come up multiple times in the play.
First, Juror 10’s views and prejudices about people from the slums begin at the very beginning of the book. After the first vote for the verdict of the trial, Juror 8 voted not guilty and said that he believed the boy deserved for all the men to talk about the trial. Juror 10 who had voted guilty felt as though the boy had already had a fair trial and that, “He’s lucky he got

Then, Juror 8 questioned why the boy would yell that and that he was too bright to do something like that. In response, Juror 10 stated, “ He’s a common, ignorant slob. He don’t even speak good english” (37). Once again, he used his prejudice against the people from slums and made the assumption that the boy is dumb and can’t speak proper english. The statement is quite ironic because Juror 10 speaks that last part of his sentence in improper English, while saying that the boy can't speak English well. He constantly judged the boy and believed that he was guilty when they were actually similar in a way. He was too stubborn and prejudice against the boy that he did and said anything that would make the verdict guilty, even when he contradicted himself which prohibited the truth from coming