Jessica Gart
Period 9
Sophomores 2020
2/24/2020
Aim: By analyzing the tone and diction of the dialogue, how can we assess the effect of “reasonable doubt” in the jury room?
Do Now:
Reviewing Act II of Twelve Angry Men
(this was a VERBAL activity but we mainly recalled and discussed what occured in Act II)
Lesson Recall:
How is prejudice affecting decision-making in the jury room?
~the various backgrounds of all the jurors causes them to view the defendant in different lights/through different perspectives
~prejudice negatively affects the decisions of the jurors because they can be racist or biased when viewing the defendant (ex. Juror 10)
~prejudice positively affects the decisions of the jurors because some of them try harder to not view the case in a biased light (ex. Juror 8/9)
Asses and Review:
Using your knowledge of diction, based on or previous lesson, with your partner, create a definition that you believe accurately depicts the term “reasonable doubt”.
My/Sam’s definition:
Reasonable doubt→ the instance in which there is reason to believe someone is not guilty
Other definitions that were shared out:
“Being 100% convinced that something is the way it is.”
“When there is the slightest piece of information which gives doubt to the case.”
Actual Definition:
Reasonable doubt→ not being sure of a criminal defendant’s guilt to a moral certainty.
**Reasonable doubt is required in criminal proceedings under the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution**
**A “hung jury” is a jury that cannot reach a unanimous verdict**
Today we read pages 44-52 in Twelve Angry Men. This is what mainly occurred:
~a re-vote took place and the jury was split (6 people voted guilty and 6 people voted not guilty)
~the people who changed their votes mainly did so because they had reasonable doubt
~Juror 8 continued to be a hostile character, loudly and rudely voicing his opinion
~Juror 8 said that nothing can convince him to change his vote
~the jury voted on whether they believe they are a hung jury or not (at first the results were split 6 to 6, but then Juror 4 changed his vote to ‘not a hung jury’ because he wanted to continue discussing murder)
~Juror 4 continued to try to understand why Juror 8 (and the others) believe the boy is not guilty
~the jurors recreated the murder scene in more detail (this recreation proved that the murder, in fact, was possible)
~some jurors started swaying more towards guilty, but some started to doubt the situation further
Group Discussion:
What causes disparity when defining “reasonable”?
~there are different point of views on how ‘reasonable’ can be defined depending on the person
~there is no SET definition for ‘reasonable’ so it is left to be interpreted by every individual
Reflection:
In today’s class we greatly discussed the term ‘reasonable doubt’ and how it applies to the play we are reading. The full definition of reasonable doubt is “when a factor cannot say with moral certainty that a person is guilty or a particular fact exists”. This definition is important for us to know because it is showing up in our current book, Twelve Angry Men. In particular, Juror 8, a juror in the book, is establishing some reasonable doubt. There is a possibility that one of the witnesses, the old man, may not be giving an accurate testimony about the defendant. This establishes reasonable doubt and may be the reason for why the defendant could be considered ‘not guilty’. Therefore, this definition is important because otherwise we would not make the connection as to why some of the jurors feel that the boy should no longer be considered guilty. Another thing we reviewed in class today was the definition of a ‘hung jury’. This vocabulary is important because it was mentioned in the reading today. The jurors may have a hung jury, and without knowing the definition of this phrase we would not understand what was happening. We can use both of these terms to aid us in the future. For example, in other books consisting of a law basis, we will understand what all the terms mean. On top of this, when we are older and need to go serve as jurors ourselves at jury duty, we will be familiar with the important terms associated with this responsibility.
Additional Resources:
In-depth definition of Reasonable Doubt:
In-depth definition of Jury Duty:
Definitions of other important law terms:
No comments:
Post a Comment