Injustice Among Jurors: How Juror 8 (Drama) and Adam Liptak (Journalism) Address Racial Prejudice Anonymous 8th Grade

Prejudice and injustice have been issues in society since the beginning of civilization. What some people do not realize however, is that it is not as uncommon today as people think it is. Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose is a drama that takes place in a jury room in New York during the 1950’s. One lone juror, Juror 8, takes a stand against eleven men voting guilty to send a young boy to death. Juror 8 explores all the possibilities of the case and questions all of the circumstantial evidence. Throughout the jury deliberations and quarrels, personal prejudices are revealed. One by one, as the evidence is disproved, the jurors begin to change sides and decide to save the boy from the electric chair. Parallel to Rose’s drama, “Racial Bias Among Jurors at Heart of Supreme Court Case,” a news article by Adam Liptak, also addresses prejudice within juries and provides an example that shows that it is still present today. The defendant, a Mexican man named Miguel Angel Peña Rodriguez, was convicted of three misdemeanors while a juror explicitly showed racist views toward Mexican people. Both Rose’s drama and Liptak’s article deal with injustice and prejudice but they approach and interpret it in different ways.

In Rose’s drama and...