Twelve Angry Men Argument analysis.

Introduction
The movie is about an eighteen year old boy who is on trial for the murder
of his father. A jury of twelve men is setup to determine whether the boy
is guilty or not guilty. They are asked to sit in the Jury room and come to a
conclusion whether the boy should be held guilty or not guilty. All
evidence is against the boy and a guilty verdict would send him to die in
the electric chair. The judge informs the jurors that they are faced with a
grave decision and that the court would not entertain any acts of mercy
for the boy if found guilty.
During the whole course of the movie, there were many arguments raised
and we will now do the argument analysis for the points raised in a
sequential manner.
Argument Analysis.
1) Argument 1: The old man who lived downstairs under
the room where the killing took place heard loud noises which
sounded like a fight at 12:10 on the night of the killing. He also
heard the kid yell out, Im gonna kill ya. A second later, he heard
the body hit the floor. The old man ran to the door, opened it and
saw the kid running downstairs and out of the house. He then called
the police. Police came, found the fathers body with knife stabbed
into the chest. The coroner fixed the time of death around midnight.
2) Argument 2: The kids entire story is flimsy. He says
that the kid claimed that the kid was at the movies during the time
of the killing and yet, one hour later, he couldnt remember the
names of the films he saw or who played in them. Also, he says that
no one saw him going in or out of the theatre.
3) Argument 3: The most important evidence is the
women who actually saw the killing. The women was not able to
sleep because of the heat. She looks out of the window and right
across the street she sees the kid stick the knife into his father and
the time is 12:10. The kids window is right opposite to hers across
the el tracks and she swore she saw him do that. She saw through
the window of the passing el train which had no passengers in it and
it was just moved downtown. The lights were out. It was also proven
in court that one could clearly see through the passing el train
during the night if lights were out.
4) Argument 4: There was a motive. The testimony from
the people in the apartment across the hall from from the kids
apartment was very powerful. The people had said about a fight
between the father and son around 8 oclock that night. They didnt
hear what the argument was about and then they heard the father
hit the boy twice. Finally, they saw the boy running out of the house
angrily. They go on to say that those slaps in the face could have
been two too many and everyone has a breaking point afterall.

5) Argument 5: The kids record is very bad. He was in

childrens court when he was 10 for throwing a rock at the teacher.
When the kid was 15, he was in reform school for stealing a car.
Hes been arrested for mugging and was picked up twice for knife
fighting.

6) Argument 6: During the trial, everybody sounded so

positive that he began to get a peculiar feeling about the trial. He
says that nothing is that positive. He wanted to ask too many
questions which might now have meant anything. He felt that the
defence counsel didnt conduct a thorough cross-examination and
he left too many questions go by and it might be because the
defence counsel was simply plain stupid. He says that if he were in
kids place, he would have asked for another lawyer. There were only
2 witnesses (lady and old man) and they were the entire case for
the prosecution. He says that they can be wrong (he supposes it) as
they are also people and people make mistakes.
7) Argument 7: The knife which was found in the fathers
chest, the boy had admitted to buying a knife on the night of the
killing They point out that the boy admitted going out of the house
at 8 on the night of the murder after being hit several times by his
father. After that, he went directly to a neighborhood junk shop to
buy switch knife. They claim that it is not an ordinary knife and is
only one of its kind. It was one of its kind the shopkeeper ever had
in his stocks. Thereafter, the kid some of his friends at 8:45 in front
of a tavern and talked to his friends for an hour before leaving at
9:45. During that time, his friends saw the switch knife with the kid.
Moreover, the kids friends identified the death weapon as that very
switch knife. The kid returns back home at 10. The kid claims that
he left for the movie at 11:30 and returned back at 3:10 but nobody
saw him leaving the house at 11:30 or at the theatres. The kid also
said that the knife fell through his pocket somewhere in between.
The juror believes that the kid stayed back and murdered his father
and left the house at 12:10.
8) Argument 8: It could be possible that someone else
with the same knife would have murdered the kids father to which
other jurors respond back by saying that the knife was only one of
its kind. Juror #3 then takes out an identical knife seeing which
everyone gets shocked. He had bought that knife from one of the
shops 2 blocks away from the kids apartment. He says that its
possible that someone else with the same knife might have
committed the murder.
9) Argument 9: The old man who saw the boy running
out of the house. He says that an elevated train approximately 1020 seconds to cross a given point. So, if the lady saw the killing
through the train that means that when the old man heard the
voice, the train would have been passing by his room. He says that
an elevated train makes too much of a noise while passing through
which makes it impossible for someone to hear their own voice. So,
he says that it would have been impossible for the old man to hear
the boy.

10)
Argument 10: The time it for the old man to rush
to the door. The old man had said that it had taken him 15-20
seconds to reach the door. However, when the scene was recreated
and Juror #8 mimicked the old mans style of walking through the
exact distance (55 feets from his bed to the front door), it showed
that it would have taken him at least 40 seconds to cover that
distance.
11)
Argument 11: The missing fingerprints on the
knife. He says that if the boy did kill his father, why did he return at
first place? He says that if he got panicked after murdering his
father and hence left the house without taking the knife, how come
he remembered to remove the fingerprints from the knife. He also
says that the women after seeing the killing screamed. So, the boy
must had heard the scream and would have gotten to know that
somebody has seen him committing the crime.
12)
Argument 13: The women who had said that she
actually saw the killing take place. There were marks on the side of
the noses which could not have from anything else than glasses. At
the time of the killing, she was lying down on her bed and no one
wears glasses to the bed. So, saw the killing through the passing
train without her glasses. So, it might be that she might not be
correct about what she saw.