Fourth Blog: 12 Fidgety Men

This blog is a complaint and an idea that the government might want to think about and apply to its "amazing" court system.

A perfect example can be found in the film, "12 Angry Men". My question is, "Why does the government make everyone serve as a juror?" As you can this in this film, there are some people in the jury who don't want to be there. An example is the juror who wants to get the thinking over with and make it to his seats at the baseball game. He doesn't give anything about this case, so he figures he will vote the majority to get out fast. This is bad, unfair, and dishonest. In this case, the defendant isn't getting a fair trial. Not only because of this juror who wants to get out for the game, but the others who don't want to actually think about it and only look at the cover of the story, and vote in the favor of death.

My argument is that the jury needs to be thought through better. The government should keep doing what they are doing with picking names out of the hat to pick whose turn it is, but after that, they shouldn't put that person right up on the jury stand. Honestly, some people really don't want to be a juror, and along with that comes an attitude. This person will be sulking the whole time and then not make good judgment, or just get influenced by someone else and vote guilty/not guilty with no reason. This may sound like not such a big deal, but one vote can change everything when a 12-vote system like the jury uses is in order.

What the government should do, is they should ask the person if they want to be a juror of the case. The case will always end up right if you have all 12 jurors actually wanting to be there and to make a difference. If one, or half of the jury wants to get out to go watch the Pistons, or get back to whatever they were doing at home, he/she is going to try and get out as fast as possible, without taking the responsibility at hand, which is making a verdict on someone's life.

Luckily, in this particular case, not only was there one juror who actually wanted to stay and dissect the evidence of the case, but even when constantly shot down by more proof, he kept going at what he believed in, and in the end was rewarded with his fellow jurors to his side, and being able to set the innocent boy free, rather than sending him innocently to his death.

Comments on the movie, I thought it was great. It was actually the second time I've seen it, but it's been awhile so it was mostly new, but I did know that it was going to end up how it did. I liked Juror #1 the best, he was such a funny guy. Anyone like a cough drop?