Was He Guilty as Charged - An Alternative Narrative Based on the Circumstantial Evidence from 12 Angry Men

In 12 Angry Men a young Hispanic man was charged with killing his father and put on trial for his life. After stormy deliberations, the jury found him not guilty. The theme of the film is that Juror #8 prevented a miscarriage of justice by his stubborn persistence in adhering to the almost religious belief that a criminal defendant should be accorded the benefit of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” and his nagging insistence on closely examining all of the evidence. The important message is that one person can make a difference. The message is, of course, to be applauded. The burden of proof in a criminal trial and the importance of each individual juror form the cornerstone of the American jury system. But the story, as so often happens, is more complicated than that simple message suggests. A careful review of the evidence and the jury’s analysis of the evidence suggest that the twelve angry men may have produced an injustice: specifically, they may have acquitted a guilty man. A jury is instructed to consider all of the relevant trial evidence and the implications of that evidence, but that was not done during the deliberations. Viewed from this perspective, the message of 12 Angry Men can be seen as very different than the conventional interpretation as a vindication of innocence. Through the leadership of Juror #8 the other jurors confronted their ethnic and personal prejudices as they deconstructed the evidence favoring the prosecution. Yet, we contend, in their deconstruction efforts the jurors failed to consider an alternative story favoring guilt, a story that focuses on circumstantial evidence. There may be a larger lesson from looking at the movie in this way. Legal rules for criminal trials are intentionally slanted toward giving the benefit of doubt to the defendant, and we should hope that the rules have