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Eyewitness Testimonies In 12 Angry Men

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Eyewitness Testimonies In 12 Angry Men
12 angry men is a 1957 film about 12 Jurors deliberating a court case about a murder. This case involves an 18 year boy being accused of killing his father. If these Jurors found the boy guilty he would be sent to the chair also known as a death penalty. When the men enter the blazing hot room they had a break before meeting up, then had a vote if the boy is guilty or not. All of the Jurors except one found the defendant guilty. When they realized Juror #8 is against them, they get rattled up and try to convince him otherwise. Juror #8 is still unsure whether the boy is guilty or not and he feels they should discuss about the case for at least an hour. He states, "It's not easy sending a boy to the chair," (Lumet, 1957) and brings up information …show more content…
Two of which were eyewitness testimonies and the third to be an actual piece of evidence. Eyewitness testimony depends on the witnesses’ perceptions and cognitive bias about an event. The problem with this, a person’s evidence might be false which can change the scenario. One of them was from an elderly man who lived on the floor below the boy and his father. The man stated he heard a fight happen upstairs and heard the boy yelling, “I’m gonna kill you,” (Lumet, 1957) after the shouting he heard a body hit the ground, and then saw the boy running down the stairs. The other evidence was from a woman who lived across the street from them and claimed she saw the boy stab his father though the windows of the passing train. After Juror #3 states the eyewitnesses, Juror #10 uses overgeneralization in his speech. Overgeneralization is judging all members of a group based on a few people also known as stereotyping. Just because the tenth Juror lived among them his whole life he assumes he knows how all the people are who lived there. Lastly, the final piece of evidence the switchblade. It has been said that the boy had purchased the knife similar to the one in the murder. As Juror #4 pulls the knife to show the men, he reinforms the switchblade was "the only one of its kind," and notes that the storekeeper who sold the knife said it was

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