12 Angry Men Long Composition

MLA Heading The following heading should be placed in the upper left hand corner of all long compositions: Name Ms. Filkins Freshman English 4 October 2017 (Due date)

Introduction Works of literature sometimes feature characters that are accused of a crime they did not commit. Occasionally, those people are forced to go through a trial and may even be found guilty even though they are innocent. So, it is the defendant’s sincerest hope that if they are receiving a trial by jury, their peers will find them not guilty after reviewing the evidence in the case. In the play 12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose, the evidence of the knife, the old man’s testimony, and the lady’s testimony provides a reasonable doubt and proves a young man on trial should be acquitted of premeditated homicide.

Body Paragraph I Reasonable doubt is a real doubt based upon reason and common sense after careful & impartial consideration of all evidence or lack of evidence in a court case. In the play, a nineteen year old boy is accused of the premeditated homicide of his father, however, various pieces of evidence presented at trial prove his innocence. One piece of evidence that provides a reasonable doubt is the murder weapon: a switch-knife. The knife was purported to be one-of-a-kind by a shopkeeper that sold the defendant the weapon, but one of the jurors on trial found a replica of the knife in the boy’s neighborhood at a junk shop. Also, the stab wound was inconsistent with the defendant’s height and knife-wielding skills; the stab wound presented an overhanded usage, while switch knives are always used in an underhanded manner. Therefore, the boy is clearly innocent based on the reasonable doubt surrounding the evidence of the knife. The murder weapon was not unique by any means and there’s no way the boy stabbed his father when his father was much taller.

Conclusion Unquestionably, in the play 12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose, the evidence of the knife, the old man’s testimony, and the lady’s testimony provides a reasonable doubt and proves the young man on trial should be acquitted of premeditated homicide. The murder weapon was not one-of-a- kind and the angle of the stab wound did not reflect the defendant’s knife- wielding skills. The old man could not have heard anything due to the el train passing, nor could he have made it to his door in time to see the boy flee the scene of the crime for he walked with two canes and had three strokes. Also, the lady couldn’t identify the defendant because no one wears their glasses to bed. In the end, just because one appears guilty, it does not mean that they actually are.