Camille Guarisco
12 Angry Men Final Paper
Most of the jurors have an initial target point of guilty with a reservation point of giving
the boy a fair trial. This paper will discuss each juror’s negotiations strategies and tactics in
order starting with juror #1 through juror #12, with the exception of juror #8 who is
discussed at the end of the paper:
Juror #1: Juror 1 is put in the position of authority at the beginning of the deliberation
process. He did a good job at calming the jurors down when things got heated, especially
when the men started to get in each other’s faces. He wanted to reach a verdict in a
civilized manner and did not seem to care which way the vote went—it seemed that he
would be fine jumping on board with whatever the majority vote was. After the first vote
takes place, all jurors vote guilty, except for one. This creates a bit of an uproar in the room
and juror 1 tries to get the group to focus on the problem at hand and not the person who
voted not guilty. This would follow the guidelines of separating the people from the
problem, but it does not seem to carry out that way. Juror 1 basically tells the other jurors
to tell juror 8 why his vote is wrong, instead of getting them to analyze the issues
presented during the case and applying this information to the problem. Juror 1 should
have helped guide the conversations to help exploit and focus on the interests and
principals, not just the positions of other people.
After the 2nd vote takes place, juror 1 seems to get defensive when he feels that another
juror is attacking his position of authority as the mentor of the group. Instead of redirecting
the attack onto the problem at hand, juror 1 becomes frazzled and it is noticeable. This
could have potentially caused him to lose his authority status and seemed to cause the
jurors to not see him as an emotionally sound authoritative figure. As the deliberation
proceeds, it seems that juror 1 does not have an opinion of his own as to whether the boy
on trial is guilty or not guilty, he leads the meeting by letting the other jurors express their
reasoning for their votes, but does not care to start by sharing information himself. Juror 1
is one juror that seems to be a victim of social proof. When the first vote takes place, it is
evident that some of the jurors are unsure how they feel about the verdict. Once a few
hands go up for guilty, others look around anxiously and follow suit due to pressure. Social
proof is more influential during times of uncertainty, like this case. Juror 1, along with
some of the other jurors, should have used a defense mechanism against this—they should
have stopped and asked themselves if they really wanted to vote guilty, turned off their
autopilot, made the correction for any misinformation, and reset their autopilot. They
should recognize that the actions of similar others (the other jurors), should not be the
reason for their decision. As the deliberation proceeds and the voting process reaches the
5th vote it is clear that juror 1 is a victim of social proof. He switches his vote to not guilty
once the majority sways in the favor of the not guilty vote. Juror 1 should have turned his
autopilot off and made a decision on his own from the beginning instead of relying on the
majority to help him make his decision—just because everyone is doing it, does not mean
it is the right decision.
Juror #2: After the first vote occurs, juror 2 explains to juror 8 and the other jurors why he
voted guilty. He explains that he heard all of the information that was presented in the
courtroom and that he does not have any reason to believe that the information is false—he
automatically assumes that everything he heart must be the truth. He clearly sees the court
as a sign of authority and does not question the information presented by the court. As the
discussions carry on through the deliberation room juror 2 seems to start budging a little
and realizes that maybe everything presented in the courtroom may not be true, or that the
information presented was not properly analyzed. Another states that the man upstairs
heard a boy say, “I am going to kill you!” He then links this to perception vs. reality—what
we perceive to be true may not really be true. With the help of juror 8 he explains that
people say “ I am going to kill you” all of the time when they get angry, and they do not
actually mean they are going to kill you—they are just upset over a certain situation and
are trying to express their emotions. As the banter in the room continues, juror 2 subtly
offers everyone in the room a cough drop. Everyone sort of stares at juror 2 and continues
on but juror 8 stops to accept the cough drop from juror 2. It seems that juror 8 is trying to
build a relationship with juror 2 and hopes that him accepting this cough drop from the
man will play out in his favor later on. Juror 2 seems pleased that juror 8 has accepted the
cough drop because it seems he offered them up in hopes of being liked. Juror 2 could
have possibly thought that offering the entire group something would increase his
likability overall. At the same time, juror 8 is also trying to increase his likeability with
juror 2 by accepting the cough drop. Finally, juror #2 switches his vote to not guilty on the
4th vote. It seems that he may have switched his vote because of liking and also due to the
rule of reciprocation—he wanted to return the favor of juror 8 being kind to him and
accepting his cough drop.
Juror #3: Juror #3 was initially dead set on a guilty verdict. He did not care to separate the
people from the problem and stated that he believed that the verdict was basically a no
brainer—an open and shut case. It seemed that he did not care to analyze the facts of the
case to ensure that his vote was based on truth and correct. Juror 8 brings up the fact that
the boy was basically beaten by his father and it was not a healthy relationship, inferring
that if the boy did kill his father that he could have possibly been defending himself. Juror
#3 starts talking about how all young boys should be smacked around a little bit and how
he smacked his own son—even when he was 16 years old—but apparently he has not seen
his son since the incident which makes seems to make his stance on the issue irrelevant.
He lets the issues he has with his own son get in the way of the issue at hand. He instead
focuses on attacking the “people” (the boy on trial), instead of the problem. After the 2nd
vote takes place there are two non-guilty votes. This does not sit well with juror #3 and he
assumes that juror #5 switched his vote. It seems like he starts to dislike juror #5 just
because he thinks he changed his vote to not guilty. This is also linked to liking—juror #3
decides that he does not like juror #5 for certain reasons and automatically assumes that
juror #5 must be the person who changed his vote—because his thoughts are blurred by the
fact that he has decided that he does not like juror #5. It does not seem that juror #3
understands his own interests—he does not truly understand why he has chosen to vote
guilty and why he is standing his ground—his initial vote is clouding his judgment and
keeping him from being able to focus on the problem at hand. He is constantly attacking
the other jurors when they provide valid input as to why some of the information may not
be what they originally perceived it to be. Juror 8 lets juror #3 continue to verbally attack
the other jurors because juror 3 is unknowingly discrediting his arguments by trying to
shut the other jurors out. Juror #3 has trouble getting other jurors on his side later on
because he has spent too much time berating the other members of the jury and smacking
their arguments to the ground. Juror #3 stays very committed and is consistent with his not
guilty vote and it seems he cares more about being consistent than he does about focusing
on the real issues at hand. Juror #3 does not change his vote to not guilty until the very last
vote—even though at one point it looked like he was going to be the reason for a hung
jury.
Juror #4: Juror 4 also seems open to collaboration after the first vote takes place. Juror 6
states something similar to “the boy and his father never got along. They had a fight. That