Plot
The story begins in a courtroom where a teenage boy from a city slum is on trial for stabbing his father to death. Final closing arguments have been presented, and the judge then instructs the jury to decide whether the boy is guilty of murder, which carries a mandatory death sentence. Once inside the jury discussion room, it is immediately apparent that all jurors with the sole exception of juror Number 8 have already decided that the boy is guilty, and that they plan to return their verdict quickly, without taking time for discussion. His vote annoys the other jurors.
The rest of the film revolves around the jury's difficulty in reaching a unanimous verdict. While several of the jurors harbor personal prejudices, juror 8 maintains that the evidence presented in the case is circumstantial, and that the boy deserves fair deliberation. He calls into question the accuracy and reliability of the only two witnesses to the murder, the rarity of the murder weapon, and the overall questionable circumstances. He further argues that he cannot, in good conscience, vote guilty when he feels there is reasonable doubt of the boy's guilt and slowly convinces each juror about the same by his logical findings around each piece of evidence.
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