The Kid Did It, Final Second

Leonard Martin1

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Kirk Semple, New York Times, October 17, 2010,8

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/nyregion/18sonia.html?_r=0

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In 12 Angry Men The Kid Did ItBy Robert Kossack, J.D.

The Movie

The original 1957 black and white version of 12 Angry Men should be required viewingfor every first year law student. It is a four star movie with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 100% 1 2

and an IMDb rating of 8.9/10. The American Bar Association ranked 12 Angry Men second on3

its list of 25 Greatest Legal Movies. Similarly, the American Film Institute ranked 12 Angry4

Men second on its list of Top 10 Courtroom Dramas. Both times 12 Angry Men was beaten out5

by To Kill a Mockingbird. The American Film Institute’s 10th Anniversary Edition of its List of6

100 Greatest American Movies of All Time ranks To Kill a Mockingbird as the 25th greatestAmerican film and 12 Angry Men as the 87th greatest American film. After a screening of 127

Angry Men at the Fordham University School of Law, Supreme Court Justice Sonia M.Sotomayor, who had selected the film for viewing, told the audience her seeing 12 Angry Mensold her “on the right path” solidifying her interest in pursuing a legal career, and JusticeSotomayor said watching 12 Angry Men “continued to ring the cords” within her. However,Justice Sotomayor also referred to Twelve Angry Men as being “far from reality” and ofcontaining “an awful lot of speculation.” As a lower court judge, Justice Sotomayor wouldsometimes refer to 12 Angry Men when instructing jurors how not to carry out their duty. 8

12 Angry Men was the first movie directed by Sidney Lumet who went on to direct over40 movies in his lifetime including The Pawn Broker (1964), Fail-Safe (1964), The AndersonTapes (1971), Serpico (1973), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Dog Day Afternoon

. . . .

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Picture12

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Directing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Adapted_Screenplay


Pictured in the film is the front of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street, New York14

City, where the Supreme Court, Criminal Branch, New York County, is located. It is the New York County trial

court for felony criminal cases.

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(1975), Network (1976), and The Verdict (1982). The Verdict ranks tenth on the ABA’s list of9

25 Greatest Legal Movies and fourth on AFI’s list of Top 10 Courtroom Dramas. Lumet’s10

movie Network is his highest ranking film on AFI’s 100 Greatest American Films of All Time,and it is considered the 64th best movie ever made in America. 12 Angry Men received11

Academy Award nominations for Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Writing of AdaptedScreenplay, but lost all three Oscars to The Bridge on the River Kwai, which ranks 36th on12

AFI’s List of 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time.13

The Setting

12 Angry Men was made at a time when it was not unusual for everyone on a jury in theNew York County Supreme Court to be a man. There is a separate door to a women’s14

bathroom in the jury room, but no woman is on the jury. In 1957, there was a different mind set. Crimes were committed by men, solved by men, and tried by men. The jurors were allowed tosmoke in the jury room. One juror smokes a pipe. Five smoke cigarettes. Six ashtrays areplaced on the jury table. Some banter takes place between some of the jurors in the adjacentmen’s bathroom. It was a hot, muggy day, and for most the movie no one on the jury can figureout how to turn on a fan at the end of the jury room until it begins to rain, and they have to closethe windows and turn on the lights.

The twelve jurors have been asked by the prosecutor to convict a young man of murder. The movie audience does not see the trial. It does not hear the closing arguments. The evidenceagainst the accused is learned piecemeal as the jurors argue the case among themselves and striveto reach a unanimous verdict. After the brief courtroom scene where the judge is reading the lastof the jury instructions, about 94 percent of the movie takes place in the jury room, 4 percent ofthe movie takes place in the bathroom, and 2 percent of the movie consists of opening scenesinside the courthouse and at the end of the movie when McCardle asks Davis his name andintroduces himself on the rain soaked courthouse landing. The audience sees the judge telling

. . . .

The script is as follows:15

Judge To continue, you've listened to a long and complex case, murder in the first degree. Premeditated

murder is the most serious charge tried in our criminal courts. You've listened to the testimony,

you've had the law read to you and interpreted as it applies in this case; it's now your duty to sit

down and try to separate the facts from the fancy. One man is dead, another man's life is at stake;

if there's a reasonable doubt in your minds as to the guilt of the accused, a reasonable doubt, then

you must bring me a verdict of "Not Guilty". If, however, there's no reasonable doubt, then you

must, in good conscience, find the accused "Guilty." However you decide, your verdict must be

unanimous. In the event that you find the accused "Guilty", the bench will not entertain a

recommendation for mercy. The death sentence is mandatory in this case. You're faced with a

grave responsibility. Thank you, gentlemen.

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the jury their verdict must be unanimous, the death penalty is mandatory, and the court will notentertain a recommendation for mercy.15

The movie audience learns the profession of ten out of twelve jurors when over the courseof the movie they introduce themselves or answer a question about what they do. In real life, thejurors would know each other quite well before they begin their deliberations. Being a juror is alot of hurry up and wait. During the waiting periods, jurors can talk to each other about anythingother than the case. During the trial, which in this case took six days, the judge will often want tohear arguments outside the jury’s presence. That means more waiting in the jury room, and moretime for the jurors to talk with one another. At the beginning of voir dire, the jurors are alwaysasked what they do, where they work and, if they are married, what their spouse does and wheretheir spouse works. By the time trial begins, every member of the jury knows what every othermember of the jury does for a living, and if they are retired, what they use to do. Now days, thevoir dire in death penalty cases for those states which still have the death penalty begins withlong written forms containing numerous questions which the prospective jurors are expected toanswer and turn in long before they enter the courtroom.

The Henry Fonda character, Juror Number 8, who places 28th on the American FilmInstitute’s 100 Greatest Heroes list, thinks the public defender did not do a thorough enough job16

cross examining the prosecution’s witnesses, and if he were on trial for his life, he would havewanted his lawyer to “tear the prosecution’s witnesses to shreds or at least try to.” JurorNumber 8 felt the accused’s lawyer let too many things slip by, and if he were the accused, hewould have asked for another lawyer. Juror Number 8 also felt everyone who testified againstthe accused was too positive about their testimony, and “nothing’s that positive.”

On their initial show of hands, eleven of the twelve jurors vote to convict the accused of murder. Juror Number 8 votes “not guilty” and wants to talk about the case before casting a

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .


Juror No. 3 Then what do you want?

Juror No. 8 I just want to talk.

Juror No. 7 What's there to talk about? Eleven of us think he's guilty. No one had to think about it

twice except you.

Juror No. 10 I want to ask you something. Do you believe his story?

Juror No. 8 I don't know. Maybe I don't.

Juror No. 7 So how come you voted not guilty?

Juror No. 8 There were eleven votes for guilty. It's not easy to raise my hand and send

a boy off to die without talking about it first.

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twelfth vote which would send the boy to his death. He just wants to talk, and suggests they17

discuss the case for an hour.

Movie Manipulation

Juror Number 8 is a tragic hero. He was mistaken in his selection of mission from thetime he became an advocate for the accused. He is assisted in luring the audience into supportinghis cause by the writers’ and director’s manipulations until by the end of the movie the audiencefeels a sense of relief when, in actuality, they are listening to fairy tales and letting a guilty mango free.

Lumet’s camera direction increases the audience’s tension and suspense which is onlyrelieved by Juror Number 8's ultimate success. The first third of the movie is filmed from aboveeye level with a wide-angle lense, and the camera often moves through the set allowing one cutto last as long as a minute. This gives the appearance of a greater distance separating the jurorsand enhances the appearance of calmness and congeniality. The second third of the movie beginswhen the secret ballots are counted. At that time, the movie begins to be filmed at eye level. Thetension slightly increases as the audience is drawn into searching for reasons to acquit theaccused. Near the end of the movie beginning when Juror Number 4 is questioned by JurorNumber 8 to see if he remembers the movies he saw four evenings prior, the camera begins toview the characters from below eye level with facial closeups which causes even greater tension. The camera returns to an overhead wide angle view only when the jurors begin to turn their backson the bigot, but for the final shift in votes, the shots are predominately taken from below eyelevel, and the scene cuts come at an exponentially faster rate for maximum stress.

With respect to the script and the acting, the movie audience is first manipulated by thejudge’s tired indifference when he reads the last of the jury instructions and when the movieaudience sees a closeup of the accused’s young, weak, pathetic face as he watches the jury leavethe courtroom to decide his fate. The audience further pulls for the accused when the jurors whomost vehemently argue in favor of the accused’s guilt prove to be nut cases.

Following the ruckus, one of the best dialogs in the move takes place. The script is as follows,18

Juror No. 3 I’m a pretty excitable guy . . . . He was just trying to bait me.

Juror No. 4 He did an excellent job.

The term “Puerto Rican” is never mentioned in the movie but is implied by the accused’s19

appearance. Regardless, the accused is treated by the racist as being inferior because of his minority race and

ethnicity, and the racist assumes the accused fits within various negative, disreputable, and criminal stereotypes.

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The first nut case is the owner of the Beck and Call Company delivery service, a bullywho subconsciously hates his own kid. He considers himself a self-appointed public avenger andwhen accused of wanting to personally flip the electric chair’s switch says, “On this kid, youbet!” The bully falsely accuses the juror who lives in the slums of changing his vote, and he laterinsults the old juror for coming up with so many “bright ideas.” He provokes the house painterinto standing up for the weaker jurors who he is trying to intimidate with his loud, backhandedstyle. At one point, he lunges at Juror Number 8 after being told he had been acting like a self-appointed public avenger and a sadist. 18

The second nut case is the successful, self-absorbed, superficial, marmalade salesmanwho insults the juror who lives in the slums for being a Baltimore baseball fan and who insultsthe house painter for being a modest, blue collar worker. His only interest is getting out of thecourthouse and to a baseball game between the New York Yankee’s and the Cleveland Indians,and he checks his watch 28 times during the movie. He doesn’t care whether the accused isfound innocent or guilty so long as he makes his ball game, and he barely cares when a waddedup paper ball he made and threw into the ceiling fan bounces off its spinning blades and hits theoldest juror in the head.

The third nut case is the disrespectful, interruptive, racist, garage owner who should havenever made it past voir dire and should have been dismissed from the jury for cause. He thinksthe kid is a born liar and dangerous because he is from a Puerto Rican slum. The garage owner19

thinks there needs to be a little more yelling in the jury room to keep things on track. He insultsthe old juror’s theory that the old man who lived downstairs from where the murder occurredembellished his testimony for the sake of attention. Finally, he launches into a bigoted diatribeuntil he is told, “Now sit down and don’t open your mouth again.”

The only somewhat normal juror who holds out for finding the accused guilty is thestockbroker. His reasoned arguments are logically and politely articulated and defended withcourtroom demeanor, but he is not very likeable. He appears to have been successful in hisprofession, but he is emotionless and somewhat aloof. He was not the kind of stock trader whoone would expect to risk money for a speculative gain; he would be a conservative investorinterested in wealth preservation. His argument that slums breed criminals is accentuated by thebigot to the point of offending the juror who had lived in the slums all his life. The stockbrokeris a bit snobby and would be far more comfortable at his weekly bridge game than he would be ata sporting event with the marmalade salesman.

. . . .

New York was the first state to execute a person in the electric chair when William Kemmler was20

executed on August 6, 1869. This was the first use of the electric chair in the world, and it did not go well. Two

attempts were necessary, and when it was over, the smell of burnt clothing and charred flesh filled the room as smoke

was observed coming from Kemmler’s head. A later autopsy revealed that the electrode attached to his back had

burned through to his spine. On August 15, 1963, Eddie Lee Mays was the last person executed in New York, also

in the electric chair. Even if convicted in a retrial, it is doubtful the accused would have been put to death. New

York abandoned the death penalty in June, 2004, after the New York Court of Appeals found the death penalty

unconstitutional in the case of People v. LaValle, 3 N.Y.3d 88 (2004).


Juror No. 3 We’re trying to put a guilty man in the chair.

* * * *

What's the matter with you guys? You all know he's guilty! He's got to burn! He'll slip

through our fingers.


Juror No. 2 The boy was five feet seven inches tall. His father was six two. That's a difference of

seven inches.


Juror No. 6 . . . . that testimony from those people across the hall from the kid's apartment, that was

very powerful. Didn't they say something about a fight, an argument, between the old

man and his son around about seven o'clock that night? I could be wrong but...

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Thus, from the demeanor of the jurors who most adamantly want the accused foundguilty, the audience is pushed to bond with the jurors who want the accused acquitted. The jurorswho first decide to vote for acquittal all show good manners, speak in reasonable tones, respecttheir duty as jurors, and are likeable because they care about other people, so who wouldn’t wantto be on their side?

The Case

A son stands accused of murdering his father. The accused is only eighteen years old. Helived in an upstairs ghetto apartment with his father, presumably on the second floor where anelevated train line passed a few feet from their apartment’s windows. The accused son may lookfrail and innocent, but he had a dangerous criminal record for mugging and for being “picked uptwice for knife fighting.”

At the time, the drinking age in New York was eighteen, and the voting age was 21. Theaccused is being tried as an adult. In New York, the condemned at the time were executed in theelectric chair. At one point Juror Number 3 blurts out, “We’re trying to put a guilty man in the20

chair where he belongs.” 21

The prosecution’s case is that at 8:00 pm the father and his son had an argument duringwhich time the father, who stood seven inches taller than his son, hit the son twice. The son22 23

Juror No. 8 – It was eight o'clock, not seven. They heard an argument. Then they heard the father hit

the boy twice. Finally they saw the boy run, angry, out of the house.

* * * *

Juror No. 4 The boy admitted leaving the house at eight o'clock at night after being slapped by his

father.

Juror No. 6 No, he didn't say "slapped." He said "punched." There's a difference.

Juror No. 4 After being hit several times by his father.


Juror No. 4 . . . He went directly to a local junk shop where he bought one of those . . .

Juror No. 5 Switch knives.

Juror No. 4 – Switchblade knives.


Juror No. 4 He met some friends of his in front of a tavern about 8.45. . . . .

* * * *

He talked with his friends for an hour, leaving them at 9.45. During this time, they saw

the switch knife. . . .They identified the death weapon in court as that very same knife . . .

He arrived home at about ten o'clock.

The knife is identified in a trivia post on the IMDb website as an Italian stiletto switchblade with a26

Filipino-style Kriss blade.


Juror No. 3 The old man lived downstairs under the room where the killing took place . . . .

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then ran angrily out of the apartment and went directly to a local junk shop where he purchased aswitchblade knife. At 8:45 pm, the son met with some of his friends in front of a tavern at24

which time he showed them the switchblade knife. At 9:45 pm, the son left his friends andarrived home at 10:00 pm.25

The switchblade knife the son purchased had an unusual, carved handle and blade. The26

keeper of the shop where the son purchased the knife testified he had never previouslyseen a knife like it.

A 75-year-old man in an apartment directly beneath the apartment shared by the son andhis father testified that at 12:10 am he heard loud noises which sounded like a fight, then heard27

the son yell at his father, “I’m gonna kill ya.” The old man testified a second later he heard abody hit the floor which caused him to go to his door, which he said took him fifteen seconds,


Juror No. 3 At 10 minutes after 12 on the night of the killing, he heard loud noises. Said it sounded

like a fight. And he heard the kid yell out "I'm gonna kill ya." A second later, he heard a

body hit the floor. Ran to the door, opened it up, saw the kid run down the stairs and out

of the house. Called the police.

* * * *

Juror No. 8 I'd like to know if an old man who drags one foot ‘cause he had a stroke can get from his

bedroom to his front door in 15 seconds.


Juror No. 10 She's known the kid all his life. His window is opposite hers across the el tracks.

* * * *

Juror No. 7 The lady across the street looked right in the open window and saw the stabbing.

Juror No. 4 Her bed was next to the window, and she could look out and see directly into the boy's

room across the street.


Juror No. 10 Here's a woman who's lying in bed. She can't sleep. She's dyin' with the heat. She looks

out the window, and right across the street she sees the kid stick the knife into his father.

The time is 12:10 on the nose.

* * * *

Juror no. 7 The lady across the street looked right in the open window and saw the stabbing.

* * * *

Juror No. 8 The woman across the street swore positively she looked out of the window and saw the

killing through the last two cars of a passing el train – the last two cars.

* * * *

Juror No. 4 . . . . the woman across the street, who actually saw the murder committed.

* * * *

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and look out his door just in time to see the son run down the stairs and out of the apartments. The old man then called the police.28

A woman who had known the son all his life, lived across the street, and her openwindow was right opposite the window to the boy’s room across the elevated train tracks. She29

testified that about ten minutes after midnight she turned and looked out her window, through thewindows of the last two cars of a passing elevated train, and into the son’s room where she sawthe boy raise his arm over his head and stab down into his father's chest. 30

. . . . she described the stabbing by saying she saw the boy raise his arm over his head and

stab down into the father's chest. . . . She said she went to bed about eleven o'clock that

night. . . . She tossed and turned for over an hour. Finally, she turned toward the window

at about 10 minutes after 12, and as she looked out, she saw the killing through the

windows of a passing el train. . . . she got a good look at the boy in the act of stabbing his

father.


Juror No. 10 This el train had no passengers on it. It was just being moved downtown. The lights were

out, and they proved in court that at night you can look through the windows and see

what's happening on the other side – they proved it.


Juror No. 11 She had to be able to identify a person 60 feet away . . .


Juror No. 11 The woman across the street testified that the moment after she saw the killing, that is, a

moment after the train went by, she screamed, and then went to telephone the police.


Juror No. 3 He stabbed his own father four inches into the chest.

* * * *

Juror No. 3 What about the switch knife they found in the old man's chest?

Juror No. 2 There was this whole business about the stab wound and how it was made – the

downward angle of it, you know?


Juror No. 3 The coroner fixed the time of death around midnight.

9

The elevated train was empty, its lights were out, and it was just being moved downtown. Under such conditions one could see through the elevated train and observe what was happeningon the other side. 31

The distance between the woman in her apartment and where the father wasstabbed was 60 feet. After witnessing the murder, the woman screamed and called the police. 32 33

When the police arrived at the apartment the son shared with his father, they found thefather dead with the murder weapon, a switchblade knife, stabbed four inches downward into hischest. The coroner set the time of death around midnight. The shopkeeper and the son’s34 35

. . . .

. . . .


Juror No. 4 . . . . This wasn't an ordinary knife. It had a very unusual carved handle and blade. The

storekeeper who sold it to him said it was the only one of its kind he had ever had in

stock. . . . He met some friends of his in front of a tavern at about 8.45. . . . He talked with

his friends for an hour, leaving them at 9:45. During this time, they saw the switch knife.

. . . They identified the death weapon in court as that very same knife.

* * * *

Juror No. 4 Take a look at this knife. It's a very unusual knife. I've never seen one like it. Neither

had the storekeeper who sold it to the boy.


Juror No. 4 He claims that he went to a movie at about 11:30, returning home at 3:10 to find his father

dead and himself arrested.

* * * *

Juror No. 11 He came back home. . . . at three o'clock or so, and he was captured by two detectives in

the hallway of his house.


Juror No. 8 According to the police testimony, the boy was questioned in the kitchen, while the body

of his father was lying in the bedroom.


Juror No. 4 He arrived home at about ten o'clock.

* * * *

He claims that he went to a movie at about 11:30, returning home at 3:10 to find his father

dead and himself arrested.

* * * *

Juror No. 11 He came back home . . . at three o'clock or so, and he was captured by two detectives in

the hallway of his house.

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friends identified the murder weapon as the knife the son had purchased and had shown to hisfriends just hours before the killing.36

The son came back to the apartment at 3:10 am and was arrested by the police in theapartment’s hallway. At the time of the son’s interrogation by the police in the kitchen, his37

father was lying dead in his bedroom. During his interrogation, the son said he came back to38

the apartment at 10:00 pm, but left again at 11:30 pm and went to the movies. That39

interrogation was conducted within one hour of when the son said he left the movies to comehome, but the son could not remember the names of the movies he had just seen or who starred in

The accused’s right to be notified of his right to have counsel present during all questioning before40

his statements could be used against him was not established until nine years later. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384

U.S. 436, 88 S.Ct. 1962, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).


Juror No. 4 He claimed he was at the movies during the time of the killing, and yet one hour later he

couldn’t remember the names of the films he saw or who played in them.

* * * *

And no one saw him going in or out of the theater.

* * * *

No one in the house saw him go out at 11:30. No one at the theater identified him. He

couldn't even remember the names of the pictures he saw.

11

them. Pursuant to an investigation, no one at the apartments saw the accused leave the40

apartments at 11:30 pm, and no one at the movies saw the accused go in or out of the theater.41

The Jurors

Juror Number 1, the foreman of the jury, is a football coach played by Martin Balsam. Some of Balsam’s other film roles were as Detective Arbogast in Psycho, Police Chief MarkDutton in Cape Fear, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel in Tora! Tora! Tora!, scam artist, snakewater salesman Mr. Merriweather in Little Big Man, and Washington Post Managing EditorHoward Simons in All the President’s Men.

Juror Number 1 works as an assistant high school football coach at the Andrew J.McCorckle High School in Queens. He wears a tie on a pull over, short sleeve shirt, and hesmokes cigarettes. As the jury foreman, he abandons keeping order and is regulated to thecounter of votes and the deliverer of exhibits to and from the bailiff and other members of thejury. Juror Number 1's only contribution to the jury’s deliberations is his confirmation that thewoman who witnessed the murder from across the street had marks on her nose from wearingglasses as he wonders out load what those marks are called. They are called “eyeglass nose padindentations.”

Juror Number 2 is a bank teller played by John Fiedler. Some of Fiedler’s other filmroles were as lawyer J. Noble Daggett in True Grit and voice overs for Piglet in three Winnie thePooh movies. Fiedler played Chief Hengist in the Star Trek episode “Wolf in the Fold,” andMr. Peterson, one of the regular patients on The Bob Newhart Show television series. Fiedlerwas the youngest actor on the jury being 32 years old when 12 Angry Men was released.

Juror Number 2 is a meek person and is fascinated by the trial process and his first timeon a jury. He smokes a pipe and at one point says with some excitement to the jury foeman,“Looks like we’ll be here for dinner, huh?” His only contribution to the jury’s deliberations ishis questioning how the young man could have stabbed down into his father’s chest when his

The presumption of innocence follows from the English common law. It is not explicitly stated in42

the Constitution but has been held to be inferred from the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The

presumption of innocence became the law of the land with the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Coffin v.

United States, 156 U.S. 432 (1895), wherein the Supreme Court held, “The principle that there is a presumption of

innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the

foundation of the administration of our criminal law.”

12

father stood seven inches taller than him. Juror Number 3 demonstrates to Juror Number 2 andthe other jurors how it would be done.

Juror Number 2 had two obvious misconceptions. The first is his initial inclination thedefendant was guilty supported by the fact that “nobody proved otherwise.” Juror Number 8 tellsJuror Number 2, “The burden of proof is on the prosecution. The defendant doesn’t even have toopen his mouth. That’s in the Constitution.” Juror Number 2 later claims he knew the42

Constitution did not require the defendant to prove anything or even take the stand. His secondmisconception is when he holds Juror Number 3 to his prior, reactionary statement, “You canthrow out all the other evidence, the woman saw him do it!”

Juror Number 3 is a delivery business owner played by Lee J. Cobb. Some of Cobb’sother film roles were as union mob boss Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront, Doctor CurtisLuther in Three Faces of Eve, New York City Detective Lieutenant McElroy in Coogan’s Bluff,and Lieutenant William F. Kinderman in The Exorcist. Cobb received second billing in TwelveAngry Men. Cobb died at age 64 of a heart attack and lived a shorter life than any other actor onthe jury.

Juror Number 3 is a hard charging, abrasive bully. He operates the Beck & CallCompany messenger service and has 37 men working for him after he, “started with nothin’.” Juror Number 3 claims he has no personal feelings about the case, but he is deeply affected by hisrelationship with his own son. When his son was nine years old, he saw him run away from afight and vowed to make a man out of him if he had to “break him in two trying.” When his sonreached sixteen years old, they had a fight, and his son hit him in the jaw. At the time of the trial,his son was 22 years old, and Juror Number 3 has not seen him since he turned twenty. Duringthe course of the movie, Juror Number 3 can be heard saying, “I would like to slap those toughkids down before they start making trouble. * * * * It’s these kids now days or whatever theyare? * * * * Rotten kids, you work your heart out.” Juror Number 3 is the last hold out to changehis vote.

After hijacking the floor from meek Juror Number 2, Juror Number 3 gets ready to rattleoff facts, but never gets past the testimony of “the old man who lived under the room where thekilling took place.” As related by Juror Number 3, the old man’s testimony was that at tenminutes past midnight he heard loud noises which sounded like a fight, he heard the kid yell

. . . .

. . . .

There is considerable argument over whether the old man who lived downstairs used the word43

“ran” when he described himself going from his bed to the door. Juror Number 4, who liked to compromise the

testimony, claimed the old man said he “went” to his front door. Most jurors thought they heard the word “ran.”

Juror Number 3 and Juror Number 7 used the word “ran.” Since the old man had a stroke the year prior to the

incident, he dragged his left foot, and he was observed at the time of the trial, three months after the murder, to move

very slowly.

13

out “I’m gonna kill ya,” one second later he heard a body hit the floor, he went to his43

apartment’s front door, opened the door, “saw the kid running down the stairs and out thehouse,” and then called the police who found the kid’s father dead with a knife in his chest.

Juror Number 3 also reminds the other jurors that the coroner fixed the time of death ataround midnight. Later, Juror Number 3 proves one can yell, “I’ll kill you!” without reallymeaning it when Juror Number 8 bates him into a verbal assault. The discussion of whethersomeone really means “I’m gonna kill you” when they yell it is wholly irrelevant since the victimwas, in fact, dead, but it made for a good irony later on in the movie.

Juror Number 4 is a stockbroker played by E.G. Marshall. Some of Marshal’s other filmroles were as prosecuting attorney Lieutenant Commander John Challee in The Caine Mutiny,Colonel Rufus S. Bratton in Tora, Tora, Tora, and Attorney General John N. Mitchell in Nixon. On the television series The Defenders, Marshal played criminal defense attorney LawrencePreston who accepted controversial cases such as complex civil rights cases, including defendingNeo-Nazis’ freedom of speech, if the need arose. Marshall also played neurosurgeon DavidCraig in the television series The Bold Ones.

Juror Number 4 never sweats, calmly reads his copy of the Wall Street Journal duringbreaks in the deliberations, and smokes cigarettes. Juror Number 4 best represents theprosecution’s case to the rest of the jury. He recounts certain of the accused’s admissions,specifically that he left the apartment at 8:00 pm after he was hit twice by his father and thenwent directly to a junk shop where he bought a switchblade knife. Juror Number 4 points outthat the knife had an unusual carved handle and blade which the shopkeeper had never previouslyseen, that the accused admitted he met up with his friends in front of a tavern at 8:45 pm and lefthis friends an hour later, that during this time the accused’s friends saw the switchblade knife theaccused had just purchased, and that the shopkeeper and the boy’s friends identified the murderweapon as the knife the accused had purchased and shown to his friends on the evening of themurder.

According to Juror Number 4, the accused’s version of the events is that after leaving hisfriends, he then went home but left again at 11:30 pm and went to the movies. Between then andwhen he returned home at 3:10 am, the accused testified the knife fell through a hole in hispocket. Juror Number 4 argues the boy’s alibi is flimsy because when questioned by the policethat evening, the accused could not remember the names of the movies he saw or who starred inthem. Further, no one remembered seeing him leave the apartments at 11:30 pm, and no one atthe movies remembered seeing him go in or out of the theater. Juror Number 4 argued, “insteadof leaving his apartment at 11:30 pm and going to the movies, the boy stayed home, had anotherfight with his father, stabbed him to death, and left the house at ten minutes after twelve; he even


Juror No. 8 - He remembered them correctly in court.

Juror No. 4 Yes. His lawyer took great pains to bring that out. He had three months to the day of the

trial in which to memorize them. It's not difficult for a lawyer to find out what played on

a particular night.

Juror Number 8 says he “sat there in court for six days listening while the evidence built up.” The45

jury is deliberating on a Friday evening based on Juror Number 8's questions to Juror Number 4 about what he did

on previous evenings. Therefore, trial started the previous Friday morning. During Juror Number 8's questioning of

Juror Number 4 in an effort to show that ordinary people can forget names of movies or the names of who starred in

them, the audience learns Juror Number 4 is so devoted to his work, that he left for work after court on Wednesday

evening and worked at his office until 8:30 pm before going home, and that in court on Tuesday he might not have

been entirely up to snuff because on Monday night he went out to the movies and saw a double feature.

14

remembered to wipe the knife clean of fingerprints.” Juror Number 4 also argued that eventhough it was possible that someone else murdered the boy’s father with an exactly similar knife,it was not very probable – an important fact the movie audience and the jurors tend to forget.

Later on, Juror Number 4 suggests the accused did not hear the woman who witnessed themurder scream or, alternatively, that screams were so common in the neighborhood, the woman’sscream went unnoticed.

When confronted by Juror Number 8 with the accused’s court testimony, Juror Number 4admitted the accused knew the names of the movies and who starred in them when asked by hisattorney at trial, but he pointed out that his attorney could have found out that information, andthe accused had time to memorize the names of the movies and who starred in them during thethree months between the time of his arrest and the time he went to trial. Juror Number 8 then44

argued that at the time of the police interrogation, the boy was under great emotional distresssince he was interrogated in the kitchen while his father lay dead in the bedroom. When JurorNumber 8 pressed Juror Number 4 to recount the names and stars of the last movies he attended,Juror Number 4 finally sweated and admitted that even though he was not subjected to greatemotional distress, he could not remember the name of the second B rated movie he saw fivenights previous or the name of the unknown, pretty actress who starred in it.45

Juror Number 5, a man of unknown occupation, is played by Jack Klugman. Klugman isknown for his work with Tony Randall when they stared in The Odd Couple on Broadway andlater in the television series by the same name. Klugman is also known for having playedDr. Quincy, a Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office forensic pathologist who in the televisionseries Quency detected and solved a murder a week despite the fumblings of the police. Klugman also played numerous roles in multiple television shows including four episodes of TheTwilight Zone. Klugman lived to be 90 years old which was longer than any other actor on thejury. He was also the last surviving juror when he passed away on December 24, 2012.

Juror Number 5 had lived in slums all his life. When asked by Juror Number 7 whetherhe was a Yankees fan, he tells Juror Number 7, “No, Baltimore.” Juror Number 7 then callsJuror Number 5 “Baltimore” for the remainder of the movie with an air of disdain and superiority

The conflict between Juror Number 5 and Juror Number 7 based on Juror Number 7 judging Juror46

Number 5 based on the fortunes of his favorite baseball team offers another protagonist/antagonist subplot. The

script is as follows:

Juror No. 7 Are you a Yankee fan?

Juror No. 5 No, Baltimore.

Juror No. 7 Baltimore? That's like being hit in the head with a crowbar once a day. I mean, who’ve

they got? Who have they got besides good grounds keepers?

* * * *

Juror No. 5 Lawyers aren't infallible.

Juror No. 7 Baltimore, please.

* * * *

Juror No. 5 Hold it.

Juror No. 7 And the Baltimore rooter is heard from again – and pop-ups are fallin' for base hits.


Juror No. 6 Why don't you stop making smart remarks?

Juror No. 7 My friend, for your three dollars a day, you have to listen to everything.

15

because Baltimore had no good baseball player on its team. Juror Number 5 was the first juror46

to point out that the old man in the apartment below could not have gotten out of his bed and runto his front door in 15 seconds. Juror Number 5 improperly influences the jury and engages injuror misconduct when he serves as a knife fighting expert claiming his expertise comes fromhaving seen knife fights in the slums where he lived.

Juror Number 6 is a house painter played by Edward Binns. Some of Binns’ other filmroles were as police Captain Juncket in North by Northwest, B-53 pilot Colonel Grady in Fail-Safe, Senator Burkette in Judgment at Nuremberg (which ranks tenth on the AFI list of Top 10Courtroom Dramas and twelfth on the ABA top 25), Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith inPatton, and Bishop Brophy in The Verdict.

Juror Number 6 stands up for Juror Number 5 and Juror Number 9 when they are beingbullied by Juror Number 3. He talks about himself as just being a working man. At one point inthe movie, Juror Number 7 appears to mock Juror Number 6 saying he was earning $3.00 a day,and even though that was probably the daily jury pay, Juror Number 7 makes the statement as if47

Juror Number 6 should be grateful for making that amount. As a painter, Juror Number 6 would

. . . .

. . . .

The New York minimum wage in 1957 was $1.00 per hour. A union painter would earn more than48

twice that amount. In 2015 dollars, Juror Number 6 would earn $16,000 annually at minimum wage or at least

$32,000 annually if he was union. Side jobs might account for extra income. The federal poverty level in 2015 as

per HealthCare.gov is $11,770 for an individual and $24,250 for a family of four. Juror Number 6 never spoke of

his having a wife or family.


Juror No. 4 The boy admitted leaving the house at eight o'clock at night after being slapped several

times by his father.

Juror No. 6 No, he didn’t say "slapped," he said, "punched". There's a difference between a slap and

a punch.

Juror No. 4 After being hit several times by his father.

Accounting for inflation, $27,000 in 1956, the year before 12 Angry Men was released, is worth50

$236,564.32 in 2015 dollars.

16

live a modest lifestyle. He was most poorly dressed man on the jury and one of two jurors notwearing a tie.48

Juror Number 6 initially contributes to the jury deliberations by examining the accused’smotive as evidenced by the testimony of “those people across the hall” who heard, “somethingabout a fight, an argument, between the old man and his son.” Juror Number 8 finishes JurorNumber 6's thought by saying, “It was eight o'clock. They heard an argument. Then they heardthe father hit the boy twice. Finally they saw the boy run angry out of the house.” According toJuror Number 4, the accused admitted being hit “several times.” According to Juror Number 6,the accused testified that during the 8:00 scuffle he was “punched” by his father.49

Juror Number 7 is a salesman played by Jack Warden. Some of Warden’s other filmroles were as Yeoman 1st Class Mueller in Run Silent, Run Deep, wealthy husband Lester Karpfin Shampoo, football trainer Max Corkle in Heaven Can Wait, local Washington Post news editorHarry M. Rosenfeld in All the President’s Men, and suicide prone Judge Mickey Morrissey inThe Verdict. Warden also played private detective Harry Fox in the television series Crazy Likea Fox.

Juror Number 7 sells marmalade for a living, and his sales techniques consist of laughs,drinks, jokes, tricks, and hitting them “where they live.” Juror Number 7 smokes cigarettes andlikes to use them in his tricks. He’s too sporty for a tie and wears an expensive pull over shirt, aflashy sports jacket, and a matching hat. In the bathroom, he brags to Juror Number 8 that hemade $27,000 the prior year selling marmalade. Juror Number 7 is shallow and self absorbed50

and only cares about whether he will miss a baseball game which starts at 8:00 pm. When itbegins to pour rain, he’s confident they have the infield covered. Juror Number 11 accuses himof not caring about the boy’s life because there are two baseball tickets burning a hole in hispocket.

. . . .

The name of the play and the television play is Twelve Angry Men as it spells out the number 12 as51

opposed to the name of the movie which is 12 Angry Men.

At least the table top should have been pristine. There are a number of other stab marks in the52

table top caused from multiple takes of the same movie scene.

17

Juror Number 7 contributes to the deliberations by rattling off the defendant’s priorcriminal record which includes throwing a rock at the teacher when he was ten years old, stealinga car when he was fifteen years old for which he was sent to reform school and, apparently,between the age of fifteen and the age of eighteen, being arrested for a mugging and being pickedup twice for knife fighting. Juror Number 7 said, “they say he’s real good with a knife.” JurorNumber 7 also opined the odds someone else stabbed the boy’s father with an exactly similarknife were a million to one, a statistic no juror disputes, but which every juror and member of theaudience seem to forget.

Juror Number 8 is an architect played by Henry Fonda. Henry Fonda co-produced 12Angry Men with Reginald Rose, the author of the original play Twelve Angry Men, and Fonda51

received top billing. He is the casts’ most accomplished actor, and some of his other film roleswere as Abraham Lincoln in Young Mr. Lincoln, share cropper Tom Joad in The Grapes ofWrath, Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday in Fort Apache, Lieutenant Douglas A. Roberts inMister Roberts, ex-lawman Morgan Hickman in The Tin Star, Brig. Gen Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.in The Longest Day, grizzled buffalo hunter Jethro Stuart in How the West Was Won, thePresident of the United States in Fail-Save, evil bad guy Frank in the spaghetti western OnceUpon a Time in the West, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz in In Harms Way and again in Midway,and fish-obsessed Norman Thayer Jr. in On Golden Pond for which he won an Oscar for bestactor.

The hero of the story, Juror Number 8 smokes cigarettes with the best of them. He is theonly juror who votes not guilty during the initial hand count to determine the accused’s fate. Hesays he does not know whether the accused is guilty but simply wants to talk. He is described byJuror Number 3 as “the leader of the cause.” At the end of the movie when Juror Number 9 askshim his name, Juror Number 8 says his name is Davis. Juror Number 8 recites testimony whichmust have come from the accused’s own mouth during trial; to wit, that the accused was born inthe slums, that he spent a year and a half in an orphanage when his father was in prison forforgery, that his father beat him regularly with his fists, and that the police threw him down half aflight of stairs when he was arrested.

Juror Number 8 improperly influences the jury and engages in juror misconduct bysneaking into the jury room a knife exactly similar to the one used to kill the boy’s father. JurorNumber 8 “testifies” that he purchased the duplicate knife at a pawn shop two blocks from theboy’s house. He then argues that it’s possible someone else killed the boy’s father with anexactly similar knife and then, following the lead set by Juror Number 4, commits amisdemeanor by vandalizing public property, namely the jury table which by the end of themovie has received two stab holes in its otherwise pristine table top. Juror Number 8 commits52

additional juror misconduct by orchestrating an experiment to see how long it would take the oldman downstairs to travel from his bed to his apartment’s front door and whether he could do so

18

in fifteen seconds. At one point Juror Number 10 asks Juror Number 8, “What do you think thattrial cost?” Juror Number 8 may very well find out the exact cost of the trial before his courtexperience is over.

Juror Number 9, the old man on the jury, is played by Joseph Sweeney. Some ofSweeney’s other film roles were as Edward M. Schultz in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit andas the Reverend in The Fastest Gun Alive, and Sweeney kept busy acting in numerous televisionshows including twelve performances the year he died in 1963 at age 79. When 12 Angry Menwas filmed, Sweeney was 73 years old.

Juror Number 9 is assumed to be retired. The audience never learns his prior profession,but he comes to court in a suit, white dress shirt, and conservative tie. He offers Juror Number 8support because he respects Juror Number 8's motives. At the end of the movie, he asks JurorNumber 8 what his name is and when Juror Number 8 tells him his name is Davis, JurorNumber 9 says his name is McCardle.

Juror Number 9 says the old man in the apartment below never had any previousrecognition and might have made himself believe he saw the boy running down the stairs becausehe needed to be “quoted just once.” The jury never discusses any evidence supporting JurorNumber 9's contention the old man had been a nothing all his life. The old man downstairs couldhave been a World War I hero suffering from post traumatic stress disorder for all that is known. Juror Number 9 makes a big issue out of the old man for coming to court with a split under theshoulder of his jacket and for dragging his left foot and trying to hide it because he “wasashamed.” Juror Number 9 describes the old man downstairs as frightened and insignificant. The garage owner was not the only juror with some preconceived notions of whether one’ssocioeconomic status affects their credibility, but Juror Number 9 he will not directly call the oldman downstairs a liar.

Juror Number 9 was the only juror to notice and remember that the woman whowitnessed the murder from her window across the street had eyeglass nose pad indentationswhich she kept rubbing during her testimony. The woman did not wear any glasses in court, butJuror Number 4 confirms the impressions could only be made by eyeglasses. Juror Number 9said the woman was 45 years old and making a desperate effort to look 35 for her first publicappearance suggesting she, as Jury Number 3 put it, “didn’t wear 'em out of the house so people'dthink she's gorgeous.”

Juror Number 10 is a garage owner played by Ed Begley. Begley plays the second oldestman on the jury. He was 56 years old when 12 Angry Men was released in 1957, but he looks atleast ten years older. Begley received third billing in Twelve Angry Men. Some of Begley’sother film roles were as William Briggs in Patterns, Anthony Demmet in Lone Star, and CaptainWilson of the Cooper Hanging party in Hang ‘Em High. Surprisingly in consideration of hisangry-old-white-man voice with which he speaks in 12 Angry Men, Begley played the part ofCharlie Chan on the radio from 1944 to 1945 in N.B.C.’s The Adventures of Charlie Chan.

Juror Number 10 is the jury bigot. He has three garages he is afraid are “going to pot”while the jury wastes time deliberating. He tries to remind the other jurors what their “dealing

Kirk Semple, New York Times, October 17, 2010,53

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/nyregion/18sonia.html?_r=0

The script is as follows:

Juror No. 11 This fighting . . . That's not why we are here, to fight. We have a responsibility. This, I

have always thought, is a remarkable thing about democracy. . . . That we are notified by

mail to come down to this place to decide on the guilt or innocence of a man we . . . have

never heard of before. We have nothing to gain or lose . . . by our verdict. This is one of

the reasons why we are strong. We should not make it a . . . personal thing.

19

with” who “let those kids run wild,” while their violence is a “normal state of affairs,” which“maybe . . . serves them right” and, later, “there’s not a one of them that is any good.”

Juror Number 10 contributes to the jury deliberations by summarizing the testimony ofthe woman across the street and how the prosecution proved she could have seen the murderthrough the cars of the moving elevated train because it was empty, and its lights were out. JurorNumber 10 described the woman as having known the kid all her life, an important fact withrespect to how easily she could have recognized the accused, and he said on the night of thekilling, the woman was unable to sleep and was dying of heat before she turned and looked outthe window in time to see the boy stab his father with a knife in a downward motion.

Juror Number 11 is a watchmaker played by George Voskovec. Voskovec was born inBohemia, presently part of the Czech Republic, and he became a naturalized United Statescitizen in 1955. Voskovec’s anti-fascist theater work led to the closure of the Liberated Theaterafter the Munich Agreement in 1938. His stared as Dr. Gerard Finney in Somewhere in Time.

Juror Number 11 appears to have recently immigrated from Europe. He understands thesensitivity of Juror Number 5 to Jury Number 10 describing those who come from slums as “realtrash.” He contributes to the jury deliberations by questioning why the accused would come backto the apartment at 3:10 am if he had just killed his father three hours earlier, especially since theaccused should have heard the scream from the woman who saw the murder from across thestreet. He says he cannot understand why the accused would come back and risk being capturedby the police. In response to the suggestion the accused at first left in a panic but came back forthe knife which he knew could be identified as the one he had just purchased, Juror Number 11points out that the accused had the presence of mind to wipe the knife free of fingerprints. Justice Sotomayor was especially moved by Juror Number 11's speech about how they werenotified to come down and judge a person they had never known and had nothing to lose or gainby their decision, and that is what makes America strong. 53

Juror Number 12 is an advertising executive played by Robert Webber who considershimself lucky to have been assigned to a murder case which kept his interest because it had “noreal dead spots.” Some of Webber’s other film roles were as General Denton in The DirtyDozen, Dixon in The Great White Hope, Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher in Midway, andColonel Clay Thornbush in Private Benjamin. Weber was the handsome, sharp dresser, and was

20

the second youngest member of the jury at age 33. Weber died from Lou Gehrig's disease at age64 having outlived Lee J. Cobb by only five months.

Juror Number 12 is more interested in appearance than substance. Naturally he smokescigarettes which was practically a requirement for being an advertising executive in the 1950's. He measured the worth of the trial by its entertainment value and admired the prosecutor for his“real drive,” but he showed little interest in taking a closer look at the facts beyond the argumentsmade by the prosecutor. Juror Number 12 is caught making a drawing of a box of Rice Pops, acereal he was advertising for which he authored the slogan, “The breakfast with the built inbounce.” Juror Number 12 was scolded by Juror Number 8 for playing tic-tac-toe with JurorNumber 3 instead of paying attention to the deliberations when Juror Number 8 snatched thepaper, crumpled it up, and said, “This isn’t a game!”

Juror Number 12 likes to preface a proposed idea with a humorous expression but thendoes not follow it up with any constructive idea. The jury is particularly amused when he says hehas a few ideas and “let’s put it out on the stoop and see if the cat licks it up,” but he fails tofollow through with any idea after he entertains the group with his ad man expression. He is allsizzle and little steak, but to his credit he shows more reliance on the witnesses accuratelyrecounting facts and truthfully testifying. After changing his vote twice and being accused of“bouncin’ back and forth like a tennis ball,” Juror Number 12 votes not guilty when the concernsof the remaining jurors’ pressing for a guilty verdict are finally all addressed. On his own, JurorNumber 12 would have found himself challenged to craft a decision in what was a “prettycomplicated business” with “so much evidence to weigh.”

The Jury Misunderstood the Meaning of the Term “Reasonable Doubt”

12 Angry Men would not be much of a movie if all the jurors did not one by one changetheir votes until the accused was eventually acquitted. For the twelve jurors in the movie, thedefinition of reasonable doubt becomes one of near absolute certainty. Never does the juryexamine the jury instructions which should have accompanied them to the jury room. Most ofthe usual stock jury instructions are ignored.

At one point the bigoted garage owner tells the mousy bank teller, “You’re like all therest. You think too much and get all mixed up.” To some extent that describes why the juryultimately found the accused innocent. The watchmaker at one point tells the marmaladesalesman, “Maybe you don't fully understand the term ‘reasonable doubt?’” when themisunderstanding of the term “reasonable doubt” was actually possessed by those jurors whowanted to acquit the accused, not by those who wanted to convict. The jurors voting for acquittalall interpreted beyond a reasonable doubt to mean without any doubt whatsoever or as thearchitect said, “No jury can declare a man guilty unless it’s sure.”. Ain’t nothin’ fo’ sure, but thejurors and the audience are convinced that for a fact to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt thatfact must be proven with absolute certainty. Any degree of improbability, whether it be a millionto one or ten billion to one, that the accused is innocent apparently makes no difference to thejury so long as his innocence is theoretically possible. The present New York Courts’ patternjury instruction defining reasonable doubt states in pertinent part,

21

. . . . the law does not require the People to prove a defendant guilty beyond allpossible doubt. On the other hand, it is not sufficient to prove that the defendantis probably guilty. In a criminal case, the proof of guilt must be stronger than that. It must be beyond a reasonable doubt.

A reasonable doubt is an honest doubt of the defendant's guilt for which areason exists based upon the nature and quality of the evidence. It is an actualdoubt, not an imaginary doubt. It is a doubt that a reasonable person, acting in amatter of this importance, would be likely to entertain because of the evidencethat was presented or because of the lack of convincing evidence.

Proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is proof that leaves you so firmlyconvinced of the defendant's guilt that you have no reasonable doubt of theexistence of any element of the crime or of the defendant's identity as the personwho committed the crime.

One chance in a million of suffering death will not cause humans to alter their lifestyles. For example, if one drives or rides in a car 100 miles, they have more than one chance in amillion of being killed in a fatal car accident. Staying alive is a supreme matter of importance,but odds of a one chance in a million of getting in a fatal car accident are not enough to deternormal people from driving or being driven in a car 100 miles because one in a million chance ofbeing in a fatal accident it is not a degree of danger which causes the average person to alter theirlifestyle. Normal people do not doubt they will arrive alive after traveling 100 miles in a motorvehicle, and although having a statistical basis, the doubt one will not arrive alive is merely atheoretical, imaginary consideration because of the excessive improbability death will occurduring the next 100 miles traveled.

The jury accepts the odds are one in a million that someone other than the accusedcommitted the murder with a switchblade knife exactly similar to the switchblade knife theaccused purchased four hours before the murder. Those odds are insufficient to create areasonable doubt about the accused’s guilt. Those odds are only sufficient to create anunreasonable doubt. The accused’s opportunity and motive, the physical and othercircumstantial evidence, the testimony of the two eyewitnesses, and the extremely highprobability the accused lied about his alibi, multiplies to astronomical levels the odds the sonmurdered his father. In seeking votes of not guilty, Juror Number 8 talks about remotepossibilities, not reasonable probabilities.

The Jury Ignores the Concept of Opportunity

The jury talks about motive but totally ignores the concept of opportunity. The accusedwas the only person who had a reasonable opportunity to commit the murder. The accused isunder no obligation to prove someone else had an opportunity to commit the murder since theburden of proof regarding all elements of the crime is born by the People, but if there was any

Juror Number 8 said the accused’s lawyer was court appointed so, technically, he did not need54

work for the Public Defender’s Office; he could have been in private practice. This article will refer to the accused’s

attorney as the public defender.

22

evidence of a forced entry into the apartment, the public defender would have brought it out,54

and it would have been discussed at length by the “bleeding hearts” on the jury because suchevidence would be exculpatory to the accused and help point the blame to someone who did nothave a key to the apartment.

Other than the accused, no one else was shown during the trial to have had an opportunityto enter the father and son’s apartment without leaving evidence of a forced entry. Looking forevidence of a forced entry would routinely be the subject of an initial police homicideinvestigation. Whoever murdered the accused’s father either had a key to the apartment or wasknown to the father and granted entry into the apartment in the slums shortly after midnight. Thewoman testified her bed was by her window and she could look out of it while lying down and“see directly into the boy’s room across the street.” The woman saw the murder take place in theboy’s bedroom, not the living room, so if the murder was committed by someone who entered theapartment without any evidence of having made a forced entry, that same person improbablyknifed the father in the boy’s bedroom.

The boy’s bedroom is the room where it was more likely the father would haveconfronted his son. If the apartment were the murder took place is exactly the same as theapartment below, the apartment shared by the accused and his father had a chain lock. If thefather answered the door at midnight, which has a low probability of happening, he would havehad a high probably of first securing the chain lock which an unknown assailant would haveneeded to break open. That leaves only the accused son, who either had a key to the apartment orwould have been let into the apartment by his father, as the only person who had a reasonableopportunity to kill his father at 12:10 am in his bedroom in their apartment.

Who else would have had an opportunity to kill the father? The population of New YorkCity in 1957 was about 7,800,000 people. Of those people in New York City, how many of themknew the father was alive, much less where he lived? Of those people in New York City whoknew where the father lived, how many would walk a slum neighborhood at midnight and beable to enter the apartment without leaving any evidence of a forced entry? Of those people wholived in New York City, who knew where the father lived, who could enter the apartment withoutleaving evidence of a forced entry, how many of them would end up knifing the father in theboy’s bedroom? The answer is no one but the son, but for the sake of argument, suppose theodds someone else had an opportunity to knife the father in the boy’s bedroom was one chance inone hundred thousand.

What then was the chance someone else with an opportunity to knife the father alsohappened to knife the father with a brand new switchblade knife exactly similar to the knife theson purchased four hours earlier. The law of probabilities says the odds have to be multipliedmeaning 1 chance in 100,000, the odds associated with the opportunity, is multiplied by 1 chancein 1,000,000, the odds associated with the assailant using an exactly similar knife, and theproduct is 1 chance in 100,000,000,000, or one chance in one hundred billion, that someone other

5,000,000,000 / 4,999,999,999 = 0.9999999998 = 99.99999998 %55

In the play and teleplay Twelve Angry Men, there is discussion of other people who would have a56

motive to murder the accused father, but there is no such evidence presented in the movie 12 Angry Men.

23

than the son had an opportunity to knife the father in the son’s bedroom and knifed the fatherwith a knife exactly similar to the knife the son purchased four hours before the murder. Thepopulation of New York City would have needed be almost thirteen thousand times greater thanit was in 1957 before one could have expect there to be an alternative suspect who had the rightopportunity and the right knife.

Another way to think about it is to assume there was at most a subset of 20 people whocould be suspected of the father’s murder because they knew the father or the son and might havewanted to do one or both of them harm. This is purely a liberal assumption since no person orpersons were suggested by the public defender as alternative suspects. Each of those 20 peoplewould have 1 chance in 100,000,000,000 of being the murderer. Since there are only 20suspects, the chance any one of those suspects committed the murder is the addition of each oftheir individual probabilities, which only sums to 1 chance in 5,000,000,000 that anyone amongthe whole group of 20 hypothetical suspects committed the murder. The person who has4,999,999,999 chances out of 5,000,000,000 of actually being the murderer is the son since thejury knows he had the opportunity to knife his father in his bedroom, and the jury knows the sonbought a knife exactly similar to murder weapon. The son had a 99.99999998 percent chance ofbeing the killer based on the knife and opportunity evidence alone which is proof of his guilt55

beyond a reasonable doubt.

Evidence of Motive

The prosecution is not required to prove motive as motive is not an element of the crime.Planning and deliberation are elements of first degree murder, but not the actual motive. Someone can plan and deliberate without any discernable motive. However, by the son’s ownadmission, he was abused by his father for a lifetime and slugged several times by his father fourhours before the murder. The jury failed to consider the motive of the accused was alsoevidenced by the actions he took immediately following his 8:00 pm beating. His reaction was toangrily leave the apartment and immediately go to the local junk shop where he bought aswitchblade knife.

The accused had no obligation to present evidence other people had a motive to murderhis father, but there is evidence of what the motive was not. Looking for evidence of robbery isroutinely the subject of any initial police homicide investigation. The jury did not discuss anyevidence the accused’s father was robbed or that anything of value was taken from the apartment. The murder was motived by a personal reason. The remaining common motives for murder arejealousy, revenge, or to hide evidence of a crime or an embarrassing fact. The accused’s motivewas one of revenge, and he forthwith acted in furtherance of his revengeful motive by buying theswitchblade knife. No one else is suggested to have had a motive to kill the father.56

. . . .

As the accused did not immediately go home from the junk shop and knife his father, the accused57

may have bought the knife saying to himself that the next time his father started to beat him up, he was going to use

the knife for protection, but the accused never asserted self defense.

24

Evidence of his motive came directly from the lips of the accused who his misguidedpublic defender allowed to take the stand on his own behalf. Juror Number 8 argued theaccused’s father beat him regularly and used his fists. That testimony could have only comefrom the lips of the accused. According to the house painter, Juror Number 6, as corrected byJuror Number 8, the people across the hall said they heard the father and his son having a fight,an argument, and they heard the father hit the boy twice. When, later, the stockbroker, JurorNumber 4, says the accused admitted his father slapped him several times, Juror Number 6 says,“he said ‘punched,’” meaning the accused testified his father punched him several times beforehe angrily left their apartment at 8:00 pm. Juror Number 8 said that after that incident, theneighbors across the hall, “saw the boy run angrily out of the house.” Thus, there was sufficientcommotion to cause the neighbors to open their door and look out their doorway or look outtheir window so they could testify to some expression of anger exhibited by the accused as he leftthe apartment.

The son’s reactionary purchase of a switchblade knife, the only legitimate purpose ofwhich is to kill, evidenced his premeditation. According to the stockbroker, the accused57

admitted going directly to a local junk shop and buying the switchblade knife. Juror Number 3asks Juror Number 8, “What about this, the knife this fine upright boy admitted buying on thenight of the killing? Let’s talk about it.” Based on that statement, the accused admitted buyingthe murder weapon on the night of the killing, the knife which was recovered from his father’sdead body.

At the time he gave his testimony, the accused did not know there existed a duplicateknife which Juror Number 8 would purchase during the trial from a pawn shop two blocks fromhis and his father’s apartment. If the knife had been found by the public defender’s investigator,and the public defender disclosed it and tried to introduce it into evidence, the judge might havedenied its admission or any mention of it since it would have been purchased three months afterthe murder when the issue was whether a duplicate knife was available for purchase at the timeof the murder.

The son had already told the police he had lost the knife through a hole in his pocket toaccount for his not having his knife when he returned home at 3:10 am. When the accusedreceived the People’s disclosure, he learned his friends had turned on him and were going toidentify his knife as the murder weapon. He would have also learned of the shopkeeper’sstatement. The son thought he needed to stick to his story that he lost his knife hoping the jurywould think someone else found his knife and used it to murder his father. Ths accused shouldhave said he left his knife in his bedroom. Interestingly, no one on the jury argues that someoneelse found the son’s lost knife and used it to murder his father. Juror Number 8 argues someonecould have stabbed the father with a similar knife. The former proposition would be the morelikely although still with odds greater than one in a million of actually happening.

. . . .

Such information would now be reserved for the death penalty sentencing phase after the accused58

was already found guilty of the crime.

25

The police must have pressured the accused’s friends to gain their testimony and toldthem to cooperate or else. The accused’s friends were probably like the accused, meaning theywere knife-fighting, mugging, car thieves. There is no discussion of any deals being made withany of the accused’s friends, but they not only positively identified the murder weapon, they musthave also been the ones who testified the accused was “real handy with a knife.” In addition, theaccused’s friends probably gave up the name of the shopkeeper so the police could corral himinto testifying in lieu of being charged with selling an illegal switchblade knife.

The Accused’s Defense Strategy and Lame Alibi Weigh Against Him

Juror Number 8 talked about how the kid was born in a slum, how his mother died whenhe was 9 years old, how he spent a year and a half in an orphanage when his father was in prisonon a forgery charge, and how he was beaten regularly by his father who used his fists. All that58

information must have been established by the accused’s own testimony. In seeking sympathy,the accused also told the jury the police threw him down half a flight of stairs. In seeking tohypothetically explain his behavior, the accused established his motive and incriminated himself. Perhaps in response to the prosecutor’s cross examination, the accused admitted after beingpunched several times by his father and leaving their apartment at 8:00 pm, he went straight tothe junk shop and bought the switchblade knife which he identified as that used in the murder.

Did the prosecutor pick up the knife during the trial and ask the accused, “Have you everseen this switchblade knife before?” One thing appears clear – at trial the accused identified themurder weapon as the same switchblade knife he bought immediately following being punchedseveral times by his father.

The legitimate reasons for the accused taking the stand were to claim his innocence andpresent his alibi. He testified he left his friends at 9:45 pm and arrived home at 10:00 pm butthen went back out at 11:30 pm carrying the knife with him, went to the movies, and thenreturned home at 3:10 am to find his father dead and himself arrested. The accused also testifiedhe lost his newly purchased switchblade knife through a hole in his pocket. According to theaccused’s story, he did not discover he lost his knife until he got home because Juror Number 4says, “What happened to the knife? He claims it fell through a hole in his pocket on the way tothe movies, sometime between 11:30 and 3:10, and that he never saw it again. Now, there is atale, gentlemen.” Thus, the first time the accused supposedly noticed his knife was missing wasafter he arrived back at the apartment he shared with his father as if he never felt for the knifewhile he sat through a double feature at the movies.

The police apparently investigated the accused’s alibi and discovered no one at theapartments saw him leave at 11:30 pm, and no one at the movies saw him go in or out of the theater. Just how many people went to the late show to see what must have been a fairly

. . . .

It is safe to assume it was an obscure B movie if the accused’s story is to be believed, and he could59

not remember its name or who starred in it within an hour of having sat through it.

26

obscure B rated movie when the late show did not begin until after 11:30 pm? The audience59

never learns how soon after the killing the police and the public defender’s investigatorsconducted their investigations of the accused’s alibi. If the teller at the movie theater wasfamiliar with the accused, a fact not addressed in the movie, then it would be more likely theteller would recognize the accused and remember seeing him at the movies on the night of thekilling.

The accused did not need to testify or prove an alibi since the burden of proof alwaysrests with the People. The accused’s alibi is disproven by placing him at the scene of the crimeby his leaving the knife behind and by the testimony of the two eyewitnesses. The truth of theaccused’s alibi was made improbable because of his inability at the time of his arrest to be able toname either of the movies he had just seen and because of the public defender’s investigator’sinability to find a single witness who saw the accused leave the apartment at 11:30 pm or be atthe movies. The public defender’s investigator had every incentive to find such a confirmatorywitness. Unfortunately, the audience does not know the extent the police and the publicdefender’s investigator searched for witnesses who could confirm the accused’s alibi.

Juror Number 8 argues the accused was questioned by the police in the kitchen when hisfather lay dead in the bedroom. Jury Number 8 argues those circumstances subjected the boy togreat emotional distress clouding his memory which would account for his not being able toname either of the movies he had just seen or who starred in them.

It the accused’s alibi were true, the pants he was wearing at the time of his arrest shouldhave a hole in one of their pockets large enough for the knife to have fallen through. The boywas arrested at his and his father’s apartment and then taken directly to jail. At the jail, he wouldhave been issued jail clothing, his street clothes would have been bagged, labeled, and placed in astorage locker, and the boy would have been issued a receipt for everything placed into storage. At the time of his trial, the pants the boy was wearing at the time of his arrest would still belabeled and securely stored in the clothes storage locker at the jail. All the public defenderneeded do was serve the jail custodian with a subpoena duces tecum to bring the boy’s pants tocourt during the trial. There is no mention of the boy’s pants being introduced into evidence atthe trial. The boy’s pants probably had no hole in either of their pockets, and their admissioninto evidence would have been detrimental to the accused’s defense.

Based on the size of the knife, it would appear probable the boy would have felt the knifefall through a hole in his pocket. This is another weakness if the accused’s alibi.

However, the best evidence the accused is lying about his alibi is his inability to narrowdown the time when he allegedly discovered his knife was missing. If the son had just purchasedthe knife, he would have inevitably felt for it at least once, if not every five seconds, if notfumble with it all night in some dark corner of the movie theater, while he allegedly sat through adouble feature. This was an eighteen-year-old, criminally minded kid with a new, cool-looking,switchblade knife. He must have taken his knife to the movies since he said it fell out of his

27

pocket between 11:30 pm and 3:10 am. How could he have been unable to further narrow downwhen he lost his knife? It was highly improbable, if not impossible, the accused did not reach tofeel for his knife while he sat in the movie theater. Thus, there is another one in a million chancethe boy lost his knife and could not narrow down the time when he lost it to anything better thanbetween the time he says he left his house at 11:30 pm and when he returned and was arrested bythe police at 3:10 am. The answer to the question of when the accused became separated fromhis knife is fairly obvious, at 12:10 am when he left it sunk four inches into his father’s chest.

If the accused’s alibi was unconfirmed by any other witness and, otherwise, it had onlyone chance in a million of being true, then it is too unreasonable to be believed, and beyond areasonable doubt, the accused’s alibi is a lie. Since the accused proved himself to be a liar, theaccused is more likely to be lying when he claims his innocence. Technically, the son taking thestand was a huge mistake.

The prosecutor was able to admit into evidence the accused’s prior juvenile recordpresumptively because the accused took the stand, and the prosecutor was able to use theinformation from his juvenile record to impeach answers given by the accused during his directexamination by his public defender. That would appear to have been the only way arrests notamounting to convictions, i.e., being picked up twice for knife fighting, could have come intoevidence. Perhaps the accused testified he did not know how to use a switchblade knife or hadnever been in a knife fight which opened the door for the prosecutor to present contrary evidence. However, if the boy proved to be a liar upon being impeached by the prosecutor, the jury nevermentioned it. The accused’s “poor me” defense merely informed the jury that violence was anormal state of affairs with him, so why should anyone on the jury have doubted the accused wascapable of knifing his father?

The Knife Evidence Should Never Have Been Thrown Out

When the jury convened, the judge, the prosecuting attorney, the defense attorney, thedefendant, and eleven of the twelve jurors were convinced the knife used in the murder was, asadmitted to by the accused and as testified to by the shopkeeper and the accused’s “friends,” thesame knife the accused had purchased from a local junk shop four hours before the murder. Juror Number 8 admitted the knife was “pretty strong evidence” but thought it possible “the boylost his knife and somebody else stabbed his father with a similar knife.” Even if there were anumber of similar knives, the possibility someone else knifed the father with an exactly similarknife was of an extremely low order of probability. It would be more likely that one of theaccused’s father’s enemies, and none were suggested, followed his son for several weeks hopinga weapon of some sort would drop from his person unnoticed, and when it did, he thenimmediately retrieved it and used it to kill the father and frame the son. In that scenario, theaccused would have needed to lose his knife before going into the movie theater. That way thefather’s enemy, who would have necessarily followed the boy, could have retrieved the knife intime to go back to the apartment and knife the father by 12:10 am. Juror Number 8 does notpresent this outlandishly improbable scenario as a viable alternative and, instead, presents an

. . . .


Juror No. 4 The knife and the way it was bought is strong evidence, don't you think?

Juror No. 8 I do.

* * * *

Juror No. 4 Are you trying to tell me that this knife fell through a hole in the boy's pocket, someone

picked it up, went to the boy's house and stabbed his father with it just to test its

sharpness?

Juror No. 8 No, but it's possible the boy lost his knife and somebody else stabbed his father with a

similar knife.

Juror No. 4 Take a look at this knife. It's a very unusual knife. I've never seen one like it. Neither

had the storekeeper who sold it to the boy. Aren't you asking us to accept an incredible

coincidence?

Juror No. 8 I'm just saying a coincidence is possible.

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even less likely scenario that someone else committed the murder with a knife exactly similar tothe knife the accused had purchased and said he lost.60

Juror Number 8 surprises the other jury members by pulling from his pocket aswitchblade knife identical to the switchblade knife which was marked and identified as themurder weapon, and he firmly sticks it into the jury table next to the murder weapon previouslystuck into the table by Juror Number 4.

Juror Number 3 had an initial reaction which would have been more carefully consideredby the remaining jury members and the audience if not made in his usual, loud, abrasive,boisterous, bullying manner. Juror Number 3's initial reaction was,

Now supposing you tell me what it proves? Maybe there are ten knives like that.

* * * *

What does it mean? You found a knife like it. What's that? The discovery of theage?”

Juror Number 8 finding another knife just like the one used in the murder was not thediscovery of the age and proves little since it was found three months after the murder. The juryknows nothing about the knife business. Between the time of the murder and the time JurorNumber 8 went poking around the accused’s neighborhood, another shipment of knives exactlysimilar to the knife purchased by the son might have been delivered, but at the time of themurder, the knife used in the murder might have been the only one in New York City. The Jurydoesn’t know if that might have been the case because Juror Number 8 circumvented cross

$6.00 is worth $51.04 in 2015 dollars.61

29

examination, and the People had no notice giving them an opportunity to address the new findwith evidence the People might have then acquired.

If a exact duplicate knife was sought to be introduced into evidence, such as a duplicateknife found by the public defender’s investigator, then the prosecutor would have been given anopportunity to inquire into the facts and circumstances of when and where the knife was foundand purchased. The prosecutor would have been able to call the shopkeeper or pawnbroker totestify where the duplicate knife was purchased, to learn how it came to be offered for sale in hisshop, when it became available, from what warehouse it had come, and whether any otherduplicate knives were offered or were available to be offered for sale prior to the killing.

Suppose there were ten such knives as Juror Number 3 suggests. That would only lowerthe otherwise astronomical odds another person would have murdered the boy’s father with anexactly similar knife. The advertising executive put it rather succinctly when he asked JurorNumber 8, “You mean you’re asking us to believe that somebody else did the stabbing withexactly the same kind of knife?” The successful marmalade salesman, Juror Number 7, whowould have been familiar with sports betting, conservatively set the odds of the knifing beingdone by the son rather than by another person with an exactly similar knife as “a million to one.” Juror Number 8 argues, “I’m just saying its possible,” but the emotionless stockbroker, JurorNumber 3, coldly reminds him, “But not very probable.”

No one on the jury ever challenged the marmalade salesman’s estimate that the odds wereone in a million someone else did the stabbing with exactly the same kind of knife. No one onthe jury ever challenged the stockbroker’s assessment it was not very probable somebody else didthe stabbing with exactly the same kind of knife, apparently accepting Juror Number 7's odds. That leaves one chance in a million the accused is innocent based on the knife evidence. Whenthe bank teller told Juror Number 3, “You said we could throw out all the other evidence,” hewas right about what Juror Number 3 said to emphasize the strength of the testimony given bythe woman across the street, but he and the remaining members of the jury were wrong to throwout the knife evidence just because Juror Number 8 found another knife just like it.

The Conduct of Juror Number 8 Was Grounds for a Mistrial

According to Juror Number 8, he went out walking the night before the first day of jurydeliberations and purchased the duplicate knife for $.6.00 from a pawn shop just two blocks61

from the apartment shared by the accused and his father. This would be in direct violation ofwhat should have been the judge’s stock preliminary jury instruction given before the jury’s firstrecess and from time to time during the trial in an effort to guarantee the accused and the Peoplereceived a fair trial. The present preliminary jury instruction used in the New York Courts’system regarding outside research and consideration of facts not presented in open court duringtrial states in pertinent part,

. . . .

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Do not visit or view the premises or place where the charged crime was allegedlycommitted, or any other premises or place involved in the case. . .

* * * *

Do not attempt to research any fact, issue, or law related to this case, whether bydiscussion with others, by research in a library . . . or by any other means orsource.

* * * *

Our law also does not permit you to visit a place discussed in thetestimony. First, you cannot always be sure that the place is in the same conditionas it was on the day in question. Second, even if it were in the same condition,once you go to a place discussed in the testimony to evaluate the evidence in lightof what you see, you become a witness, not a juror. As a witness, you may nowhave an erroneous view of the scene that may not be subject to correction by eitherparty. That is not fair.

Finally, our law requires that you . . . not attempt to research any fact,issue, or law related to the case. Your decision must be based solely on thetestimony and other evidence presented in this courtroom. It would not be fair tothe parties for you to base your decision . . . upon information you acquire outsidethe courtroom.

Juror Number 8's snooping around the crime scene, buying the knife, bringing it into thejury room, and testifying about how he acquired it were all acts taken in violation of the stockpreliminary jury instruction. The experiment performed in the jury room to measure the time ittook the old man downstairs to travel from his bed to his front door, also orchestrated by JurorNumber 8, was also done in violation of the stock preliminary jury instruction. Juror Number 8acted in contempt of court in addition to having committed the crimes of buying a switchblade,carrying an illegal weapon, carrying a concealed weapon, carrying a weapon into a courthouse,and vandalism of public property when he stabbed the knife into the table. These acts were morethan enough to created a mistrial, and Juror Number 8 may find himself tried for contempt andmade to pay restitution to the state equal to the entire cost of the trial from the judge’s salary tothe fair market value of the rental of the courtroom space to the other jurors’ fees. And it is notas if Juror Number 8 is likely to get away with it. He left the knife he brought into the jury roomon the jury table when he left the room at the end of the movie. The knife can be seen in theclosing shot when the camera pans the jury table. Sooner or later that knife will be discovered,sooner if the bailiff makes a quick check of the jury room after the last juror leaves the room. The judge would be immediately informed of the knife. The proceeding would screech to a halt.

The People would be best served if the bailiff discovers the duplicate knife on the tablebefore the jury is seated and their verdict announced. After the verdict is announced, the bailiffmight be able to corral the jury before they leave the courthouse since jurors do not immediatelyleave the courthouse following the end of trial as suggested in the movie. All jurors, rich and

The accused is presumptively in custody since it is doubtful he could post bail, and his case went62

to trial three months after he was arrested, inevitably within 60 days after he was bound over at the preliminary

hearing and arraigned in the Supreme Court (which is the New York felony trial court).

31

poor, can usually be seen standing in line before the paymaster waiting to pick up a check fortheir juror fees. Oftentimes the attorneys are allowed to talk with the jurors, and only in unusualcases do all the jurors decline to do so. The bank teller would happily speak with the prosecutorand would inevitably spill the beans. If the knife was not found until the next Monday, the judgewould have all the jurors summoned back to court. The jurors would probably be interviewedone at a time under oath in the judge’s chambers.

The legal question is whether another trial would subject the defendant to doublejeopardy. If the knife in the jury room was discovered before the court announced the jury’sverdict, the judge would stop the proceedings, declare a mistrial, the defendant’s case wouldtechnically never have come to an end, and the accused could be subjected to another trial whichwould actually be a continuation of the first trial as no verdict would have been announced. Inthat case, double jeopardy would not apply. But what if the knife was not discovered until afterthe jury had rendered its verdict, when the defendant had already been acquitted, and thedefendant was waiting to check out of jail? What if the knife was discovered by the weekend62

cleaning crew, the judge then found the knife on his desk Monday morning along with a notesaying where it was found, and by that time the acquitted had been released from jail? What ifsomeone from the cleaning crew stole the knife, and the juror misconduct was not discovereduntil years later? If the prosecutor finds out about the jury misconduct from the bank teller, doesthe prosecutor have a duty to ask all the jurors to return to the courtroom and send the bailiffrunning after the one juror who already received his check and was halfway out the building? Could a steamed prosecutor bring charges against Juror Number 8 for contempt of court forfailing to follow the judge’s preliminary jury instructions, or is that at the sole discretion of thejudge?

If a mistrial was declared before the verdict was announced, the continuation of the firsttrial would not be double jeopardy. If a mistrial was declared after the verdict was rendered, andthe judge was at fault because he failed to give preliminary jury instructions, the kid walks. If amistrial was declared after the verdict is rendered, and the mistrial was caused because the juryfailed to abide by the preliminary jury instructions, the matter becomes more complex with theanswer depending on whether the manifest necessity exception to the double jeopardy clause ofthe Fifth Amendment can be satisfied. Like the house painter asked the architect, “Suppose youtalk us all out of this, and the kid really did knife his father?”

There is Enough Evidence to Convict the Accused Without the Testimony of the TwoEyewitnesses

This summary of the evidence includes the testimony of the people across the hall, thetestimony of the shopkeeper, the testimony of the accused’s friends, the testimony of the police,the admissions of the accused, and the physical evidence, all of which were not disputed by anyof the jurors. Also included are some of Juror Number 8's observations and this author’s cold,hard logic:

32

First The accused was the eighteen-year-old son of the victim, and the sonwould have had a key to the apartment where he lived with his father orwould have been let into the apartment by his father.

Second The father regularly beat his son with his fists until the boy learnedviolence was a way of life.

Third The son exhibited violence as a young age by throwing a rock at histeacher.

Fourth By the time the son had become a young man, his violence had progressedto the point that he mugged a person, was picked up by the police twice forengaging in knife fights, and had developed a reputation of being real goodwith a knife.

Fifth At 8:00 pm, four hours before the murder, the father and son had a loudargument which sounded like a fight, and the father, who was seven inchestaller than his son, punched his son several times with his fists.

Sixth As a result of being beaten by his father, the son angrily ran out of theapartment and went directly to a local junk shop where he bought anillegal switchblade knife.

Seventh The knife the son purchased was unusual and was the only one of its kindthe shopkeeper had ever seen or had in stock. It was a rare knife to see atthe time of the murder.

Eighth The son illegally carried the switchblade knife, showed it off to his friends,and then returned at 10:00 pm with the switchblade knife to the apartmenthe shared with his father.

Ninth The police received telephone calls from the old man downstairs and thewoman across the street at about 12:10 am reporting an incident at thefather and son’s apartment.

Tenth When the police arrived at the apartment shared by the father and his son,they found no signs of a forced entry, the son was gone, and the father laydead in the son’s bedroom with a switchblade knife stabbed downwardfour inches into his chest.

Eleventh The coroner determined the time of death to have been around midnight.

Twelfth The shopkeeper testified the murder weapon was the one he had sold theson four hours before the murder. The son’s friends testified the murderweapon was the one the son had shown them three hours before themurder.

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Thirteenth The son admitted in court the murder weapon was the switchblade knife hehad purchased four hours before the murder.

Fourteenth The son testified he left the apartments at 11:30 pm and took his newswitchblade knife with him and, therefore, did not leave it in theapartment.

Fifteenth The son was unable to produce the knife he purchased seven hours earlierwhen he arrived at the apartment he shared with his father at 3:10 am andfound himself apprehended by the police. He claimed he lost the knife hehad purchased seven hours earlier because it fell through a hole in hispocket sometime between 11:30 pm and 3:10 am on the night of themurder.

Sixteenth The son claimed he went to the movies between 11:30 pm and 3:10 am,but upon questioning by the police that evening, the son could not namethe movies he saw or who starred in them.

Seventeenth The son could not narrow down when he lost the knife other than to say helost it between 11:30 pm and 3:10 am and, therefore, the son claimed henever once felt for his knife when he was allegedly walking to the movietheater or sitting in the movie theater or when he was walking home fromthe movie theater.

Eighteenth Although their chain of custody would have been easy to establish, the sonmade no attempt to enter into evidence the pants he wore on the night ofthe murder to prove they had a hole in one of their pockets big enough forthe knife to have slipped through unnoticed.

Nineteenth The son was unable to produce a single witness verifying he left theapartment at 11:30 pm or went in or out of the movie theater on the nightof the murder.

Twentieth An investigation by the police was unable to find a single witness whocould verify the son left the apartments at 11:30 pm or went in or out ofthe movie theater on the night of the murder.

Twenty-first There was no evidence that the motive for the murder was to rob the fatheras nothing was taken from the apartment.

Twenty-second The son chose to testify, but he presented no evidence anyone otherthan himself could have made an unforced entry into the apartment,or had a motive to murder his father, or possessed a knife exactlysimilar to the one he purchased.

. . . .

The accused is charged with first degree murder which would require an intent to kill coupled with63

deliberation prior to his committing the crime. He purchased the switchblade knife four hours earlier showing

premeditation. However, he did not immediately use the knife to kill his father at the first opportunity, and he only

used the knife after he and his father got into another fight. He did not claim self-defense. He claimed he was not at

the apartment during the murder in an effort to avoid all responsibility. For sake of movie interest, the boy was

guilty of first degree murder or guilty of nothing. The jury could not find the accused only guilty of manslaughter as

a lesser included offense.

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The preceding twenty-two facts refute Juror Number 8's contention that the prosecution’swhole case relied upon the testimony of the two eyewitnesses. The circumstantial evidence aloneoffered more than enough evidence to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the accusedmurdered his father. The son had the propensity, the motive, and the opportunity to murder hisfather. The father was found dead in the son’s bedroom. The knife used in the murder waseither the one the son purchased four hours prior to the stabbing or by an extraordinary onechance in a million coincidence was another knife exactly the same as the knife the son hadpurchased. Accepting the son’s contention that he never felt for his knife between 11:30 pm and3:10 am on the night of the murder, which would be absolutely necessary if the boy’s alibi wereto be believed, would require a leap of faith circumventing astronomical odds. The accused lyingabout his alibi is further evidence of his guilt. The motive behind the murder was not robbery. No one other than the accused had the motive and the opportunity to murder his father. Thefinding of the dead father, the corpus delicti, which was not in dispute, along with all thecircumstantial evidence against the accused, along with a complete lack of any evidence pointingto any other suspect, was more than enough to convict the son of first degree murder.63

The evidence is too cumulative to be ignored. If the accused did not commit the murder,What are the odds:

a. That within hours of the accused being punched several times by his father,running out the apartment, and buying a switchblade knife, that someone elseusing an exactly similar knife would end up sticking it four inches into his father’schest (1 chance in 1,000,000); and,

b. That the father and son’s slum apartment would show no evidence of there being aforced entry (1 chance in 10,000); and,

c. That on the same evening as the murder, the accused would lose his brand newknife within seven hours of buying it through a hole in his pocket without noticingit was missing (1 chance in 10,000); and,

d. That the accused would not be able to narrow down the time he lost his knife anycloser than within a three hour forty minute window when he was supposedlygoing to a moving theater, sitting in a movie theater, and coming back from themovie theater (1 chance in 1,000,000); and,

e. That the accused would be unable to remember anything about the movies heallegedly saw when questioned by the police (1 chance in 2)?

The ten second period of time is an estimate made by various members of the jury. Elevated train64

cars are 60 feet long. A six car train would be 360 feet long. New York elevated trains can travel up to 45 miles per

hour. At 30 miles per hour, an elevated train would travel 44 feet per second and pass a given point in 8.18 seconds.

To take ten seconds, the train would need to be traveling 24.5 miles per hour. The jury has no idea how fast this

particular train was traveling except it knew this train did not need to make any stops since it was just being moved

downtown. Also, if the killing from the perspective of the woman across the street took place when the windows to

35

Using the above estimates of the individual probabilities, calculating the probability allthese events happened at the same time requires one to multiply each of their individualprobabilities. The final odds the accused was not the one who committed the murder is onechance in twenty quintillion (1 chance in 20,000,000,000,000,000). Twenty quintillion isroughly 2.7 times the number of grains of sand on the Earth. So finding the accused innocentbased on the circumstantial evidence alone is like finding a specific grain of sand on a planetwhose surface area is 2.7 times that of the Earth. Possible, but so unlikely it isn’t worth anyone’sconsideration. There is no reasonable doubt about the accused’s guilt.

The Eyewitness Evidence

In addition to all the circumstantial and physical evidence, there were two eyewitnesses tothe event. The first eyewitness was a 75-year-old man who lived in the apartment directly belowthe apartment shared by the accused and his father. The second eyewitness was a woman whohad known the boy all his life and who lived across the street and elevated train tracks from theboy and father’s apartment and whose window was directly in line with the window to the boy’sbedroom.

There was no evidence presented the old man downstairs or the woman across the streethad any bad dealings with the accused or had developed any bias against him. The old man saidhe heard some of what went on in the apartment above and saw the accused run down the stairsand out of the apartments. The woman across the street said she actually saw the accused stab aknife downward into the chest of his father through the last two cars of a passing elevated train.

The Old Man Downstairs

The credibility of the old man downstairs was drawn into question. First, it wasquestioned whether the old man could have heard the accused yell, “I’m gonna kill ya!” andcould have identified the accused’s voice. Second, it was questioned whether the old man couldhave reached his front door in time to see the accused run down the stairs and out of theapartments.

The old man downstairs testified that at 12:10 am he heard loud noises which soundedlike a fight, then heard the boy yell at his father, “I’m gonna kill ya.” The old man said a secondlater, he heard a body hit the floor. Juror Number 8 combines the testimonies of the old man andthe woman across the street to conclude the old man could not have heard the boy yell out, “I’mgonna kill ya!” Juror Number 8 argues that since the woman across the street testified she sawthe killing through the windows of the last two cars of a passing six-car elevated train, and sincethe jury concluded it would take a six-car elevated train ten seconds to pass a given point, and64

the second to last car came into view, then the stabbing began after two-thirds of the train had passed, or after 6.66

seconds at 24.5 miles per hour and 5.5 seconds at 30 miles per hour.

Advancing the cause of acquitting the accused, Juror Number 8 describes this delay which the old65

man downstairs said was “a second later” by adjusting it downward and saying the sound of the body hitting the floor

was “a split second later.”


Juror No. 9 This is a quiet, frightened, insignificant old man who ... has been nothing all his life, who

has never had recognition or his name in the newspapers. Nobody knows him. Nobody

quotes him. Nobody seeks his advice after 75 years. Gentlemen, that's a very sad thing –

to mean nothing. A man like this needs to be quoted, to be listened to, to be quoted just

once – very important to him.

Juror No. 7 Are you tellin' us he'd lie just so he could be important?

Juror No. 9 No. He wouldn't really lie. But perhaps he made himself believe he heard those words

and recognized the boy's face.

36

since Juror Number 8 and Juror Number 6 claimed the roar of an elevated train passing one’swindow is deafening, and since the old man testified he heard the accused yell, “I’m gonna killya!” and a second later heard a body hit the floor, Juror Number 8 concludes the elevated train65

must have been roaring past the boy’s window a full ten seconds before the body hit the floorand, therefore, the old man could not have heard the accused yell, “I’m gonna kill ya!” and if hedid hear someone yell, “I’m gonna kill ya!” then he would not have been able to identify thevoice.

The old man on the jury, Juror Number 9, suggested the old man downstairs madehimself believe he heard the boy say, “I’m gonna kill ya” and made himself believe he saw theaccused run out of the apartments because he was “a quiet, frightened, insignificant old man who[had] been nothing all his life” and “[needed] to be quoted and listened to . . . just once.” As66

an alternative not considered by the jury, the old man could have been embarrassed that he hadalready moved to his front door and opened it to better hear the commotion as listening to suchfights and arguments was probably one of the few diversions the old man had from his otherwiseempty life, or perhaps he had a favorite listening place in his apartment where he could best hearthe father and son through the ceiling, like next to an air vent. That too is speculation, but so isthe opinion of Juror Number 9.

There is no indication the old man downstairs ever called the police when the father wasregularly using his fists to beat his son. The thud of a body hitting the floor probably sounded thesame as the son going down for the umpteenth time. Simply hearing a commotion whichsounded like a fight followed by a thud would probably not cause the old man to call the policegiven his prior history of not calling the police to report repeated instances of child abuse. Sowhat made this instance so special the old man finally called the police? The noise of theelevated train passing the boy’s bedroom’s window notwithstanding, the old man calling thepolice evidences he heard something in addition to the usual sounds of the father beating his son.


Juror No. 8 I wonder how clearly he heard the boy's voice through the ceiling.

Juror No. 10 He didn't. The window was open. So was the one upstairs. It was a hot night.

Now days, there would be a recording of the old man’s call to 911 in which the old man would be68

heard saying, “I just heard the kid upstairs arguing with his father, then he yelled out, ‘I’m gonna kill ya.’ and then I

heard a body hitting the floor.”

37

Since the old man finally called the police and since the father was found dead from a stabwound to his chest, the old man must have heard someone yell out, “I’m gonna kill ya!”

The old man could have heard the accused yell at the top of his lungs through the ceiling,a possibility the jury rejects without any evidence supporting its rejection and even though thejury never visited the apartments. The jury got sidelined into believing the old man could haveonly heard the accused yell “I’m gonna kill ya!” through the open windows. Juror Number 867

wonders if the old man could have heard the boy yell out, “I’m gonna kill ya!” though the ceiling,Juror Number 3 then says, “He didn't. The window was open. So was the one upstairs. It was ahot night.” From then on, the jury is tricked into believing the old man could have only heardwhat happened upstairs through his open window.

When Juror Number 8 claims, “We've proved the old man couldn't have heard the boysay ‘I'm gonna kill you,’" Juror Number 10 correctly says, “You didn't prove it at all!” but by thattime in the movie the audience knows the garage owner is an abrasive, discourteous, crotchety,old bigot whose rejection of Juror Number 8's arguments was based on a discriminatory animus. It was reasonable the old man downstairs heard the boy through the ceiling if not through theopen windows. It was unreasonable for the jury to assume the old man lied just because he cameto court with a split under the shoulder of his jacket or because he was ashamed he needed todrag his left foot.

The old man testified he heard loud noises which sounded like a fight prior to his hearingthe accused yell out, “I’m gonna kill ya.” That was before the train arrived and when the old manwas in a better position to have heard what was said during the fight. The old man was asleepand was woken up shortly after midnight by the fight between the accused and his father. Theold man knew the boy’s voice, and he knew the old man’s voice, and he could compare what heheard the night of the killing with what he had heard many times in the past. It was not necessaryfor the old man to have recognized the boy’s voice at the time he yelled, “I’m gonna kill ya,” ifthe old man had already identified the boy’s voice from the argument leading up to the boysaying, “I’m gonna kill ya.” There is no evidence one way or another what the old man told thepolice when he first reported the incident over the telephone.68

The old man testified that before he called the police, he went from his bed to his frontdoor in fifteen seconds, opened the door, and saw the accused running down the stairs and out ofthe apartments. Juror Number 9 says, “He said fifteen seconds. He was very positive about it.” Juror Number 3 says, “He was an old man. Half the time he was confused. How could he be

The diagram of the apartment used in the movie is technically incorrect. The diagram of the69

apartment used in the play and teleplay showed the apartment had two bedrooms, one for the boy and one for the

father. If the apartment only had one bedroom, there would be no reason why it would need a hallway.

38

positive about anything?” If the old man was too confused to be positive about anything, then histestimony should be ignored, but that is not why the jury chose to ignore his testimony.

It was not clear whether the old man testified he “ran” to his front door. That is howJuror Number 6 and possibly Juror Number 7 remember the old man’s testimony. JurorNumber 4 says the old man said he “went” to the door, but that was probably due to thestockbroker’s propensity to compromise testimony for the sake of expediency. The old manbeing wrong about it taking him fifteen seconds to reach his front door is not reason to distrustand exclude the remainder of his testimony.

The jury was convinced the testimony of the old man was unreliable because JurorNumber 8 demonstrates that if the old man walked at the same pace he did to and from thewitness stand in court, then it took him 42 seconds, not fifteen seconds, to get out of his bed andwalk to his front door. The experiment performed by Juror Number 8 when he tries to imitate69

the old man getting out of bed and walking to his front door was filmed in one continuous shotand so can be separately timed by the audience. The bank teller misread the time. The time ittook Juror Number 8 to perform the experiment as show in the movie was 31 seconds, elevenseconds less than measured by the bank teller.

The experiment orchestrated and performed by Juror Number 8 was outside of thecourtroom, not subject to cross examination, and not addressable by either counsel which is whyjurors are not allowed to conduct such tests and experiments, the reason for which is especiallyobvious in 12 Angry Men since there was no one to question the bank teller’s measurement of thetime. Someone also needed to cross examine Juror Number 8 who said the old man suffered astroke “last year,” because Juror Number 8 knew nothing about how fast the old man could moveat the time of the murder three months before trial. Juror Number 8 did not know whether or notthe old man had suffered additional medical problems from the time of the murder which furtherslowed him down.

Many people have difficulty estimating the time it took an event to happen. Thisestimation becomes more difficult if the person was witnessing an exciting event of greatconsequence. A witness’s failure to properly estimate the time it took an event to happen doesnot mean the witness does not remember the event itself. Similarly, a witness may recognize ascene they would not otherwise be able to draw or a face they would not otherwise be able todescribe. The old man’s failure to correctly estimate the time it took him to go from his bed tohis front door, even if he appeared very positive about his estimate, should not be considered adefinitive test of whether the old man witnessed the accused run down the steps and out theapartments. If the old man filled in a detail or two because of his need for attention, such asreaching his front door soon enough to actually see the accused run out of the building, thatwould be rather psychotic, but the old man’s conclusion would still be drawn from hisrecognition and identification of the boy’s voice and his recognition and identification of theboy’s cadence running down the steps which he would have heard numerous times.

39

The old man testified the boy began running from the apartment as soon as he heard thebody hit the floor. That cannot be the case since the assailant took time to wipe the knife clean offingerprints, and that could not have occurred until after the boy’s father staggered around a bitand finally fell to the floor. The woman across the street testified the lights went off in the boy’sroom as soon as the train passed. It took some time for the assailant to turn off the lights. If thelights went off in the boy’s room as soon as the train passed, then the assailant must have left thevictim before the train entirely passed to turn off the light switch, and the assailant apparentlyknew exactly where that light switch was located, and the assailant then needed to wipe the knifefree of prints in the dark, which gave the old man even more time to reach his front door and lookout. The old man need not be lying about looking out his front door in time to see the boy runout of the apartments, and his testimony in that regard should be accepted; he just might havebeen wrong in thinking it took him half the time to reach his front door as it actually did if hemoved as slowly at the time of the murder as he did in court.

At the very least, the jury should have concluded that the person who committed themurder got in a loud argument with the accused’s father and was a young man capable of runningdown the stairs with the sound and cadence of the slender built son. The old man’s testimonywould eliminate as suspects any of the father’s friends and associates who he might have allowedto enter his apartment at midnight. Whoever murdered the accused’s father would have neededto be a young man who the father allowed to enter his apartment and then allowed to follow himinto his son’s bedroom. Not very likely anybody but the son.

At one point, Juror Number 4 says, “If we're gonna wade through that nonsense aboutwhere the body was found,” but that line of inquiry was never pursued. If the body was moved,then the old man had even more time to get to his front door to see the boy run down the stairs. Maybe the boy first thought about moving the position of his father to make it appear he acted inself defense or, more likely, his father moved around a bit before falling down during which timethe boy turned off the lights, something which could have easily gone on for thirty seconds ormore. Then the boy still needed to wipe the knife clean of fingerprints.

The Woman Across the Street

Before the woman’s eyesight was drawn into question, before Juror Number 9 recalledshe had eyeglass nose pad indentations which she kept rubbing in court, nine of the ten jurors haddecided not to convict the accused based on the woman’s testimony even though there was nogood reason for them not to do so. No one suggested they were accepting the garage owner’sraciest observation that her kind were “born liars” and “you one can’t believe a word they say.” Yet nothing else fully explains the jury’s unwillingness to convict the accused based only on thewoman’s testimony even though she “testified in open court” as later stated in the failed

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .


Juror No. 10 Here's a woman who's lying in bed. She can't sleep. She's dyin' with the heat. She looks

out the window, and right across the street she sees the kid stick the knife into his father.

The time is 12:10 on the nose.

* * * *


* * * *

Juror No. 8 The woman across the street swore positively she looked out of the window and saw the

killing through the last two cars of a passing el train – the last two cars.

* * * *

Juror No. 4 . . . . the woman across the street, who actually saw the murder committed.

* * * *

. . . . she described the stabbing by saying she saw the boy raise his arm over his head and

stab down into the father's chest. . . . She said she went to bed about eleven o'clock that

night. . . . She tossed and turned for over an hour. Finally, she turned toward the window

at about 10 minutes after 12, and as she looked out, she saw the killing through the

windows of a passing el train. . . . she got a good look at the boy in the act of stabbing his

father.


Juror No. 10 This el train had no passengers on it. It was just being moved downtown. The lights were

out, and they proved in court that at night you can look through the windows and see

what's happening on the other side – they proved it.

40

argument by Juror Number 3 at the end of the movie. , or that she “testified under oath” as stated70

by the advertising executive who had the most faith in the sanctity of the oath.

It is not clear whether the woman across the street testified the elevated train was six carslong. Someone else needed to testify the train was just being moved downtown, which wassomething no one directly involved with the case could have known. Some public relationsperson from the New York subway and elevated train system probably testified that according tothe regularly kept business records the train was empty, was just being moved downtown, all its lights were turned off, and the train was six cars long. How did the People prove to the jurorsthat one could see through the car of an elevated train at night if its lights were turned off? This71

was the only factual proposition made by the garage owner which was accepted by all membersof the jury. Did the prosecutor have a model in a darkened courtroom? Did everyone go out tothe tracks at night? Did the People rely on expert witness testimony. Perhaps this propositionwas never questioned because each of the jurors inevitably looked through darkened elevatedtrains while they were on their way home from the preceding five days of trail and when theydrove around town during the intermittent weekend.


Juror No. 10 She's known the kid all his life. His window is opposite hers across the el tracks.

* * * *


Juror No. 4 Her bed was next to the window, and she could look out and see directly into the boy's

room across the street.

The garage owner statement, “She’s known him all his life,” was never challenged.

41

Because the woman had eyeglass nose pad indentations and for no other reason, the jurydecided to wholly disregard the woman’s testimony. Juror Number 3 pointed out that the womancould have been farsighted or could have worn sunglasses and correctly asks, “What do youknow about it?”

Confirmation the woman saw the killing with reasonable clarity was proven when thephysical evidence matched what she described she saw. Either when she called the police orwhen she was later questioned by the police, but before she had any opportunity to knowanything about the physical evidence left at the scene of the crime, the woman told the policeenough details about the murder to indicate she saw enough to identify the accused. She said shesaw a murder take place in the boy’s room. The father was found dead in the boy’s room. Shesaid she saw the assailant stab with a knife. The father was stabbed with a knife. She said shesaw the assailant stab downwards into the father’s chest. The father was stabbed downwardsfour inches into his chest.

If the woman across the street could describe the murder weapon as being a knife, shecould then describe the general dimensions of the assailant. Further, she had seen thefather and the boy since the boy was born, and she was familiar with how they carried72

themselves. At the very least, the woman was able to credibly testify the assailant was the same height, weight, and build as the accused. She told the police and testified under oath sherecognized the accused as being the assailant.

It is legitimate to question the ability of someone with normal vision to recognize at nightsomeone in a lighted room 60 feet away through the windows of a passing elevated train. It wasimproper and unfair to the People for the jury to speculate as to the degree of the woman’s visionimpairment, if any, especially when there was no evidence the woman had any difficultynegotiating the courtroom during the trial and no evidence she was nearsighted. Even givensome vision impairment, but not enough to have stopped the woman from perceiving a knifebeing used in the murder, and in consideration of the woman’s familiarity with the accused’sphysique, gestures, mannerisms, and movements through a lifetime of observation, the womanwas qualified to identify the accused as the assailant. Her testimony like the testimony of the oldman downstairs was supported by all the other circumstantial evidence. There is no evidence sheor the old man took their oaths lightly, and their testimonies on the stand were not impeached inany way.

Presumptively into the heart. If only into one side of the lungs, then the father may have remained73

on his feet coughing blood for several minutes.

42

Looking solely at the most reliable information received from the eyewitnesses, what arethe chances that the assailant would also be a young man of the same general height, weight, andbuild as the accused (1 chance in 10), and ran down the stairs with the same cadence as theaccused (1 chance in 10)? Multiplying the previous calculation by these additional odds, thetotal odds the accused did not commit the crime become one in two sextillion, meaning there area hundred times more planets with 2.7 times the surface area of the Earth to search for that onegrain of innocence. If the witnesses were accurate in their identification of the son, then the sonis absolutely the assailant.

The Exculpatory Arguments Are Insufficient to Impeach the Other Evidence

There are two exculpatory arguments raised during the jury’s deliberations, neither ofwhich can overcome the insurmountable evidence of the accused’s guilt. First, that the boywould not have come back to the apartment because he would have been afraid of being caught. Second, that the boy would have stabbed his father underhanded beneath the ribs rather thanoverhanded through the ribs and into his chest.73

Coming Back to the Scene of the Crime

Criminals do dumb things all the time which lead to their being caught, and the accusedreturning to the scene of the crime was one of them, but the audience was not given enoughinformation to assess just how dumb the accused acted. Were the black and white patrol cars stillin front of the apartment, or did they leave? After the black and whites left, were a couple ofdetectives left behind to stake out the apartment on the off chance the murdered man’s killerwould return since that happens on occasion?

The advertising executive argued that the accused returned because he didn’t think thebody would be discovered until the next day, and he returned to retrieve his knife because heknew it could be identified as the one he had just bought. The watchmaker argued that it wouldnot make sense for the accused to return to the apartment because he would have heard thewomen across the street scream when she saw the murder. The stockbroker suggests that perhapsthe woman did not scream very loud or that screams in the slums were so common it wentunnoticed.

Juror Number 11 said the woman across the street screamed the moment after the trainwent by as if there was a delayed reaction between the time she saw the killing and the time shescreamed. This appears to be an assumption on his part. The distinct possibility is that shescreamed when she saw the knife thrust into the father’s chest and that scream occurred while thelast half of the last car was passing between the woman and the assailant. For the assailant tohave heard the woman scream, the woman would have needed to scream directly out herwindow, and the assailant would have needed to hear the woman scream through an elevatedtrain car with all its associated noise interference, and the assailant would have needed to hear thewoman scream even though he was moving toward a light switch just as soon as he sunk the

This stock jury instruction cites to a 1960 case decided after the filming of the movie.74

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knife into the father’s chest. In all likelihood, the assailant would not have been able to hear thewoman scream.

The jury also assumed the accused returned to retrieve his knife. That is only onepossibility. The other possibility, which is far more likely, is that after the accused fled theapartment and walked the street three hours, he realized he was broke, had no place to stay andno means to run, and he needed risk returning to the apartment to take whatever cash andvaluables he could find to help him make his escape.

When the accused arrived home at 3:10 am, he was arrested in the apartment’s hallway. If he ran upon seeing the police, and flight is always seen as evidence of guilt, that would accountfor why he ended up being thrown down half a flight of stairs. It’s called a “runner’s fee.” Regardless, the fact that the accused returned to the apartment three hours after he allegedlymurdered his father is not as exculpatory as the watchmaker would like it to be, and it does notlessen the overwhelming probability the accused committed the murder.

Using the Switchblade Overhanded

Juror Number 5 makes an exculpatory argument based on his having always lived in theslums. He claimed switchblade knifes are designed to be used underhanded, and anyone familiarwith a switchblade knife would not have used it any other way. The victim was stabbed downinto the chest, so based on Juror Number 5's opinion, whoever killed the victim with aswitchblade knife must not have been familiar with how to use it.

Juror Number 5 offers an expert opinion when he says the accused would have gone forhis father underhanded which causes the jury to venture beyond consideration of evidence legallyadmitted during trial. Offering such an opinion is a violation of the New York Courts’ stock juryinstruction regarding juror expertise which states,74

In evaluating the evidence and the issues presented, you should use yourcommon sense, knowledge, and experience, just as you would in makingdecisions in your daily life. When I speak of “knowledge” and “experience” inthis context, I mean the sort of knowledge and experience that an average personwould acquire in life.

Some of you, however, may have something more than ordinaryknowledge or experience in a certain area. Indeed, it may be that you havedeveloped a special expertise in a certain area, well beyond what an averageperson would have.

If you have such a special expertise, and if it relates to some materialissue in this case, it would be wrong for you to rely on that special expertise toinject into your deliberations either a fact that is not in evidence or inferable from

44

the evidence, or an opinion that could not be drawn from the evidence by a personwithout that special expertise. The reason it would be wrong to do so is that youmust decide this case only on the evidence presented to you in this courtroom.

Therefore, with respect to any material issue in this case, you must not useany special expertise you have to insert into the deliberations evidence that has notbeen presented in this courtroom during the trial.

Juror Number 5 says he always lived in a slum, and knife fights came with the territory. Juror Number 5 was professing to have developed a special expertise in knife fighting wellbeyond what an average person would possess. Juror Number 5 applies an expertise none of theother jurors possess, and in so doing, he “testified” anyone who knew how to use a switchbladewould have stabbed the victim underhanded because a switchblade is designed to openhorizontally for underhanded use, and switching to an overhand grip would take too much time.

Juror Number 5 was never in a knife fight and never taught knife fighting. He probablywould not have qualified to testify as an expert witness on the subject of knife fighting. Theaccused was said to be real handy with a knife and probably would not have lost half a second tochange his grip on the knife; if he was truly good with a knife, he probably practiced quicklychanging his grip as one of his advanced knife fighting techniques. Further, if the boy was in hisroom, the knife might have already been open and sitting on a bureau making it easy to grab anduse overhanded, and since an argument proceeded the killing, there was plenty of time for theaccused to brandish the knife and change his grip. What is known for certain is that someonewho used a switchblade knife to kill the father used it overhanded.

Does the Kid Walk?

If the judge failed to give the preliminary jury instructions and he was to blame for themistrial, the kid walks. If busybody Juror Number 8 is to blame, then so is every other memberof the jury. No juror brought up in any way what was said in the preliminary instructions aboutvisiting any place involved in the case or researching any issue or basing their decision oninformation acquired outside of the courtroom. Every juror had an obligation to report to thejudge that Juror Number 8 came into the jury room packing a switchblade. Every juror had anobligation to report to the judge that Juror Number 8 was advocating performing an experimentto see how long it would take the old man downstairs to get from his bed to his apartment’s frontdoor. Every juror had an obligation to ignore Juror Number 5's “expert” testimony. Consideringthe watchmaker’s attention to such details, one would need conclude it was the judge’s faultrelieving Juror Number 8 from needing to pay for the cost of a trial he turned into a mistrial.

Over the course of the movie, the other jurors change their votes to not guilty. In the end,the movie audience comes away thinking the jury did the right thing when it acquitted theaccused. The movie audience becomes convinced there is a reasonable doubt about theaccused’s guilt, and in so doing becomes the victim of movie manipulation in its purest form. The 12 Angry Men movie audience begins pulling for Juror Number 8 wanting to see himsucceed even if it means demanding much more than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and that’sthe main problem with finding the kid not guilty.

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About the author: Robert Kossack graduated from the University of Arizona College ofLaw in 1986 and practiced law in Las Vegas, Nevada for 25 years specializing in the field ofcivil rights. Robert Kossack is also the author of The White Trash Test available in thebook section of Amazon.com.

Documents

The Kid Did It, Final Second