NAZISH SIDDIQUI

MBA Morning
Course: Leadership in Organization
March 23rd, 2011

Power and Influence; 12 Angry Men

 Had Fonda already sure about the boy’s innocence before coming to the court room?

In my opinion, Fonda did not hold the boy definitively “not guilty” but he had made up his mind about
what he wants to do in the jury room, beforehand. He has been carefully watching the trial being
conducted by the court for a number of days and he felt the need for a more thorough analysis of the
facts presented during the trial by the prosecution.

His body language and gestures depicted his seriousness towards the matter pertaining. Like all other
jury members he was not driven away by his personal interests nor was he intending to get done with
the verdict and resume his own life.

When in the first round of voting he saw that except for him the 11 other jurors had already believed
the boy to be guilty he, in my opinion, figured out his positional power within the group. According to
the law the decision had to be unanimous and all 12 jury members had to vote for the same decision. At
that moment just his vote could either save the boy or send him to die. Therefore, at that moment he
opted not to vote guilty. This is obvious from his statement he made when he was asked for standing
out of the rest of the jury;

“I don’t want to change your mind it’s just that we’re talking about somebody’s
life here, we can’t decide in 5 minutes. Supposing we’re wrong …-“

“Well 11 votes for guilty it’s not easy to raise my hand and send the boy off to
die without talking about it first”

He felt that the witnesses and the testimonies were being single mindedly followed and everybody
assumed the facts as they appeared on the surface. His motive was to question the assumptions that

“I don’t have something brilliant. I only know as much as you do. According to the
testimony the boy looks guilty, maybe he is. I sat there in court for 6 days listening all the
evidence build up. Everybody sounded so positive; you know I began to get a peculiar
feeling about this trial. I mean nothing is that positive.

A lot of question I would like to ask may be they wouldn’t mean anything but I began to
get the feeling that the defense council was not conducting a thorough enough cross
examination. I mean he left too many things go by, little things…..
were already been taken by all the jury members apparently. Cross examining the witnesses and their
testimonies was his preplanned move. He said;

He had an idea that everybody seems sure about the boy being guilty and so to trigger critical
examination and to convince other jury members to think about the possibilities that might exist he
mentioned his reasons for being skeptical.

I kept myself pretty much in the kids place, I would ask another lawyer I think. I mean if I
was on trial for my life I would have wanted my lawyer to tear the prosecution witnesses
to shreds or at least try to. Look there was one alleged eyewitness to this killing, someone
else claims he heard the killing and saw the boy run out afterwards.

There was a lot of circumstantial evidence. But actually those two witnesses were the
entire case for the prosecution. Supposing they are wrong……

 What strategies he used to change everyone’s opinion?

Before getting into his strategy to influence everyone I would like to start from the point when Fonda
identifies each jury member’s stance on the case. In the round when each juror attempted to convince
Fonda otherwise, he carefully gauged every individual juror’s opinion, personality, prejudices and
reasons for holding the boy guilty. He learnt who had logic to follow and who had personal biases
against the boy.

The bank manager seemed to have no reason to believe the boy committed the murder. It’s just that he
had no reason to believe otherwise.

Bank Employee (2nd Juror): “well, it’s hard to put into words; I think he is just guilty. I think it was who
had obvious...nobody proved otherwise.”

The 3rd juror mentioned about his own son who had hit him and now this man hasn’t seen his son for
two years. Still he insisted on the fact and apparently showed no biases.

Angry father (3rd Juror): ‘I don’t have any personal feelings about it, I just want to talk about the facts -
quotes the testimony – these are facts, we can refute facts.”

The stockbroker was the most rational man in the room. He was very positive about the boy being guilty
and argued solely on the basis of facts.

Stockbroker (4th Juror): “It’s obvious to me that the boy is guilty, his entire story is flimsy” ( mentions
that the boy couldn’t recall the movies and actors he claimed to have watched on the night of the
murder)
Similarly when the salesman attempted to convince him that he saw a motive in the boys act, Fonda
countered him accordingly, pointing to the environment the boy dwelled in.

Working man (6th Juror): “I was started to be convinced very early in the case. You see, I was looking for
a motive. It’s very important because if you don’t have a motive who needs to kill, right? Anyway those
testimonies….that were very powerful ...”

When Fonda talks about the background of the boy accused, the angry man states “you’re not going to
tell me that we’re supposed to believe in this kid knowing what he is. Listen I’ve lived among them all
my life and we can’t believe a word they say, you know that. I mean they’re born liars.”

Precisely, Fonda took different approaches to convince the jury members. Those who were rational and
wanted to see logic in the argument, Fonda attempted to sport possible loopholes of flaws in the
witnesses’ testimonies. He gave them food for thought and tried to recreate the murder incident as
much as possible to show that testimonies maybe distorted. Here he used the direct one to one tactics
to persuade the members to critically see the evidences. Members like the stockbroker, working man,
the watchmaker and the old man were looking for objectivity and Fonda reasoned on grounds of
possible facts to counter their arguments.

When Fonda gambled for support the first one to give in was the old man who was influenced by the
motive, stamina and persistence of Fonda. He said,

“This gentleman has been standing alone against us, now he doesn’t say the boy is not guilty, he just
isn’t sure. Well, it’s not easy to stand against the ridicule of others, so he gambled for support. And I
gave it to him. I respect his motives. The boy in trial is probably guilty but I want to hear more….”

For members like the advertising man, bitter man, foreman and the bank employee who had no
objectivity he tried to pull them in and make them a part of the decision making process by pushing
them to state their stances and opinions during the argument.

The angry man restate the facts a put by the woman who saw the boy stabbing his father. Fonda
counters his comment by asking,

“You don’t believe the boy’s story, how can you believe the woman’s? She’s one of them, isn’t she?”

Rest was the members who had certain emotional attachments with the case. Like the angry father and
the man who spent his childhood in slum. For them Fonda did not use a direct tactic rather used an
indirect approach to influence them. The man from slum was convinced much earlier in the process as
compared to the angry father. This jury member was the last to be convinced and Fonda very
intelligently played the already convinced members to influence him rather than directly attempting.
This man was countered with persistence, patience and focus.