Jury System Dbq

The justice system that relies on twelve individuals reaching a life-or-death decision has many complications and dangers. The play Twelve Angry Men, by Reiginald Rose, illustrates the dangers of a justice system that relies on twelve people reaching a life-or-death decision because people are biased, they think of a jury system as an inconvenience, and many people aren’t as intelligent as others. The first reason why Reiginald illustrates dangers is because people can be biased or they can stereotype the defendant. The Jurors in Twelve Angry Men relate to this because a few of them were biased and several of them stereotyped the defendant for being from the slums. The defendant in this play was a 19 year old kid from the slums.

The legal definition according to the book is “The principal legal doctrine permitting consideration of mental abnormality in assessing criminal liability.” According to google it says it is the state of being seriously mentally ill. One other definition I have heard was from Einstein, and that was that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Insanity refers to the defendant’s mental state at the time the offense was committed. The insanity defense is most often used in cases in which the defendant is charged with a violent felony.

An agreement from the jury is a unanimous decision between all 12 jurors. The jury consists of everyday citizens given the responsibility of deciding the innocence or guilt of an accused person. Jurors should decide the fate of the accused because it is a peaceful method to resolve the problem, a unique constitutional right not many people in the world get to enjoy , and it gives everyday citizens a chance to participate in the government and represent the voice of the people. First of all using a jury provides a peaceful method to resolve issues. A jury represents everyday people who all have different viewpoints on different things.

I think that I would like to be on a jury and experience what is required of a juror, I think everyone should be a member of the jury at least once in their lifetime. Having to experience the juries’ duties on a civil or criminal case, in some instance would be hard. Especially in a murder case involving children or battered women. When the judge gives you direction to please disregard that statement. How can you disregard information that you have heard?

a reasonable doubt. After the closing arguments from both the prosecution and defense attorney, the jury will deliberate. Jury deliberation takes place in seclusion, and jury instructions from the judge will be made clear, any evidence will be reviewed, testimony and witness credibility will be taken into consideration, as well as the charges. Subsequently, the jury will reach a verdict and the judge, defendants, prosecution attorney, defense attorney, and accused will reconvene in the courtroom for the verdict to be read aloud by the jury foreman (Gaines and Miller, 2011, p.189). Once the verdict has been read, the trial process has concluded.

areas in sociology and if this work is pushed to the forefront in legal sociology, it will be less for the sound knowledge it can offer than for the opportunity it presents to apply sophisticated research technique. [ Selznick, 1959. 119-120]. Close examination even of the products of the jury studies reveals that far less was achieved than had been anticipated and planned. The Kalven-Zeisel study of the American Jury is, of course, the centerpiece of the effort, and it exemplifies the division of labor between social scientists and legal scholars that Selznick described for the second stage[ Kalven Harry, H. Z.

Introduction The quote The quote cited by Antoine reflected the attitude towards the concept of trial by jury prior to the 20th century. The view then, was that the jury system was believed to be an inviolable right; one of the chief safeguards of rights against the abuse of judicial power . Lord Devlin in the Hamlyn Lectures stated, “it is impossible to understand any English institution of any antiquity unless you know something of its history” .

Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Jury The mock trial conducted in class on the 27th of September was between Pedler vs the crown. In a real trial a jury is meant to entail a large cross section of the community where members of the public are randomly selected on the electoral roll. For this case I participated in the jury it was evident that the there were both strength and weakness to the system. A strength of the jury system that was shown is the attentiveness they showed during the trial despite a few time it was clear most people took there time to analyse and think about the case to make a clear decision.

Standing alone takes a great deal of courage. At the start of book The Twelve Angry Men Juror Eight stands alone. Later in the book Juror Three is the one who is left standing alone. Standing Alone is one of the most difficult things to do because everyone is trying to join the majority since they believe the majority is correct. One of the reasons it is difficult to stand alone is because everyone is against you opinion since they think they are correct.

When reviewing the issues associated with the criminal justice system in the United States, wrongful convictions are becoming a serious one that society as a whole needs to be aware of. While there are a countless factors that can contribute to a wrongful conviction, there are five distinct ones that are the leading causes in wrongful convictions: the adversarial process, Eyewitness identification, misconduct and errors regarding forensic evidence, interrogations and confessions, and jailhouse snitches/informants. In relation to wrongful convictions, the adversarial system places more emphasis on the process rather than truth finding, meaning an individual can usually only appeal if there is an issue regarding the process; if someone is wrongfully

Every American citizen should serve on a jury because it allows new ideas into the verdict and it is fair to all Americans. In Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, Juror 11 says, “I have always thought a man was entitled to have unpopular opinion in this country. This is the reason why I came here. I wanted the right to disagree” (28). To allow all American citizens to serve on a jury, it would allow different views and ideas from other countries to be heard.

“When injustice becomes a law, resistance becomes a duty” told by Thomas Jefferson. Sadly, since the judicial system of America was established there has been a lack of fairness, through which it has become unavoidable. This has resulted in some of the citizens themselves to confront it by fighting back trying to establishing justice. In Twelve Angry Men, Reginald Rose emphasis the theme of “Injustice” through his characterization of eleven out of the twelve jurors, the extensive use of verbal irony to convey their ignorance, and sarcastic attitude the author has towards the play. Reginald Rose utilizes characterization to thoroughly depict each of the twelve jurors.