Hung Jury

Last evening I watched the Hindi movie 'Ek Ruka Hua Faisla'. The movie has 12 theatre actors playing members of a jury that have assembled in a room to arrive at a verdict to acquit or convict a young boy charged with his father's murder.

A pretty interesting plot, but how did this movie take birth in India? I thought. Indian law does not go by the jury system. A little research pointed that the movie is a replica of the English and original version called '12 Angry Men'. I am very inquisitive to watch the original version and will definitely do that as soon as I can.

Nevertheless, the Hindi version impressed me, and sent me on a thought trail. The plot is really manifold. There are a lot of important human traits hidden in this little story. Some of them caught my attention and amazed me at the fact that using such a simple setting the story-teller has been successful in actually portraying so many aspects.

The story starts with 12 jury members casting their vote to acquit or convict the charge. 11 of them vote to convict, whereas only one member votes for acquittal. The 11 unanimous jurors are absolutely certain that the boy being tried of murder is guilty. The 1 member that votes against it is not sure if the boy is guilty, and that's why he wants brainstorming to go through all pieces of the puzzle again, in order to determine for sure what his verdict should be.

He believes that dialogue about the facts will help reveal the truth. However, the dialogue mostly tends towards being personal on the jurors themselves, because of the lack of patience and the want to participate on the part of all but that one juror, and also because of the diversified attitudes and personalities of each of the jurors.

But with his patience and knack for the finer details, piece by piece he disproves all the claims of the remaining jurors on why they think the charge is guilty. He forces them to think again, and think from a different perspective, that they had completely missed out the first time. Here what struck me is the portrayal of how difficult and challenging it is to make a person change his mind! Most of us are so rigid about what we think that we refuse to consider another view only because we want to stand by what we think. We want to prove that we are right and are too stubborn to let go.

It was also shown that most of the 11 jurors gave a 'guilty' verdict based only on what looked from the outside as obvious, without taking the trouble of understanding the claims of the prosecution in depth. This reflects on our lazy attitude to take things as they come to us, and generally do what the rest of the majority is doing, because that is the more convenient path to take.

One by one, the 1 juror is successful in changing the minds of the rest. He makes them realize that their opinion is based not on facts, but rather on their own past experiences, biases and conveniences. Aren't all of our decisions taken in the same way? We forget what the facts say and do things out of habit, apprehensions/learning from past experiences, and most likely our prejudices based on our beliefs.

Lastly, what impressed me is the belief, confidence and patience of the 1 juror, who at the end is successful in instigating the rest of them to reconsider their decisions, look at the facts from another perspective, and finally reverse their votes, and end with a unanimous verdict of 'not guilty'. He believed in himself and did not 'follow the herd' and believe in what looked like the obvious from the outside without justly investigating the matter. Any amount of ridicule, blame and anger from the rest of the jurors did not deter him to waver from his belief. The patience with which he conducted himself spoke of complete professionalism and non-egocentricity. I wish we could also conduct ourselves so emotionlessly and practically, especially at our work places!

All in all, it was a movie that had a lot to tell through the 12 personalities and their interaction.

(A 'Hung Jury' is a jury that cannot agree upon a verdict after an extended period of deliberation and is deadlocked with irreconcilable differences of opinion.)