Movie poster for The Twelve Angry Men
An 18-year-old who grew up in a slum was charged with killing his father in the middle of the night. Twelve people from different backgrounds and professions were selected to form a jury in this case, and they needed to reach an agreement in a segregated deliberation room to decide whether the defendant was guilty or not, and if convicted, the teenager would be sentenced to death.
Stills from "Twelve Angry Men"
Judging from the trial, the case can be described as "ironclad evidence": First, the woman living opposite the defendant's house saw the defendant's murder through the window of her bedroom and the window of the speeding train. Secondly, the old man downstairs heard the defendant shouting "I'm going to kill you" and the sound of his body falling to the ground, and immediately saw the defendant running down the stairs. Third, the murder weapon in this case, the spring knife, is the same as the one that the defendant once purchased. Finally, the defendant claimed that he was watching a movie in a movie theater from 00 a.m. to 3 a.m. on the day of the crime, but he could not even say the name of the movie.
In the face of such a case of "conclusive evidence", the jury even without discussion had 11 jurors convicted the defendant of murder, and only Juror No. 8 raised his reasonable doubts, and as the debate deepened, he stripped away the case, and the confusion and contradictions of the prosecution's evidence were constantly revealed. In the next 5 rounds of voting, the voting results were 10:2, 8:4, 6:6, 3:9, 1:11, fewer and fewer people agreed that the defendant was guilty, and finally the third juror who stubbornly insisted that the defendant was guilty also gave up his position, and all the jurors reached an agreement, and the juvenile was acquitted. This is the award-winning American classic film "Twelve Angry Men".
After watching this film, I had a lot of thoughts, and the artistic value of the film is unquestionable, but I am not a film critic, I do not want to comment on its artistic value, but I want to analyze the following two issues from a legal point of view: one is democracy; the other is the democratic value embodied in the British and American jury system.
First, what is democracy?
The word democracy originated in ancient Greece, where the Greeks combined the words "people" with "power" to form the word "democracy," which means "the power of the people." In Western academic circles, different scholars have different interpretations of the concept of democracy. In Socrates' view, democracy refers to the rule of the mob or the poor (commoners); Rousseau believed that democracy refers to the sovereignty of the people, and "the people" refers to the collective of all individuals, and the collective formed by the union of all individuals is the people; Hamilton emphasized that democracy is the direct rule of the majority, which means that the people personally organize and manage the government; Schumpeter held the view that democracy is equivalent to democratic methods or democratic procedures. Others argue that democracy is pluralistic democracy (represented by Dahl), either participatory democracy (represented by Pettman), or coercive democracy (represented by Barber).
Socrates in the painting
No matter how different thinkers differ in their understanding of the concept of democracy, they all agree that the people hold the last power, otherwise democracy would no longer be democracy. Therefore, I tend to think of democracy as the rule of the people, and this people should also include all citizens, that is, under the premise of democracy, all citizens can participate directly or indirectly in decision-making that affects all members. Therefore, the people have the main effect, first of all, to follow the common rules when making decisions. Theoretically, the unanimous rule should be the most democratic, but due to the complexity of social life and the large number of members of society, it is often difficult to reach a consensus in democratic practice, so the majority decision rule is often used, such as the simple majority decision rule, the two-thirds majority decision rule, the three-quarters majority decision rule, etc. But the application of the rule of majority decision does not mean that the minority does not enjoy rights and excludes them from democracy, but on the contrary, the rights of the majority must be respected and protected, and corresponding compensation should be given when necessary, otherwise democracy will become the dictatorship of the majority. Therefore, only a democratic environment can guarantee the realization of rights, and democracy has always been the goal pursued by the rule of law in all countries in the world, and the jury system came into being under the goal of pursuing democracy.
Second, the embodiment of democratic ideas in the judiciary - the jury system
The origin and development of the Anglo-American jury system is closely linked to political democracy and judicial democracy; by elevating a certain number of citizens to the position of judges exercising judicial power, citizens can directly participate in the judicial process of the country, which can not only give full play to the positive role of citizens, but also enable people to truly feel democracy.
Stills from the first season of Jury
First, from the qualification restrictions on jurors. In the United Kingdom, although there were initially strict property, gender and race restrictions on jurors, these restrictions were gradually lifted with the strengthening of democratic concepts and democratic systems, such as the Jury Act of 1974, which stipulates: "Any voter registered in parliamentary or local government elections, aged 18-65, who has lived in the UK for more than 5 consecutive years from the age of 13, and who has not been deprived of jury rights or professional restrictions for a crime, can serve as a juror." In the United States, there were no strict property and status requirements for jurors at the beginning, and according to the U.S. Federal Jury Choice Act, "the court cannot deliberately exclude a certain group or class of people from serving as jurors", which undoubtedly expands the popular base of the jury system in the United States. Thus, on the face of it, democracy is achieved in the jury system.
Second, from the composition of the jury and the process of selection. The jury system is a product of democracy, and anyone can become a juror, unless he or she lacks the basic ability to recognize things due to age, intelligence, mental health, or has a criminal record, etc., is not suitable to serve as a juror, he or she is eligible to be selected as a juror, regardless of gender, race, occupation, age (and of course should be an adult). And from the original intention of the jury, jurors should represent all classes with political rights, not representatives of the elite. Just like the 12 jurors in "Twelve Angry Men", they are ordinary citizens who have nothing to do with judicial work, from all walks of life, including architects, advertisers, watchmakers, cleaners, stockbrokers, company employees, sports coaches, retirees, etc., perhaps they are laymen in the laws and regulations, but they represent the opinions, suggestions and demands of different interest groups, which undoubtedly reflects the characteristics and requirements of democratic politics. Moreover, the selection of jurors is random, and the jury is arbitrarily composed and temporary, which can avoid judges from judging cases based on subjective bias.
Finally, in the process of reviewing the case, jurors communicate with each other, think about the problem from the perspective of others, find details that they did not notice during the trial, persuade others on a controversial issue or be persuaded by others, and finally achieve consensus of opinion. In this way, the opinions of any juror need to be taken seriously and will not be ignored, and democracy is reflected in the process of deliberation rather than voting. Just as in "The Twelve Angry Men", in the case where 11 jurors all believe that the defendant killed, if the majority principle is adopted, then the opinion of Juror No. 8 will not be taken seriously at all, not only will the defendant lose his life in vain, but the judicial democracy of the jury system cannot be reflected. It can be seen that although the principle of unanimous adjudication sometimes causes litigation inefficiency (in the case of a jury that cannot reach a consensus ruling, the judge will dissolve the jury and reconstitute the jury for trial), it can better reflect the democratic requirements.
In summary, although the Anglo-American jury system has been criticized because of its various flaws, such as jurors' susceptibility to subjective feelings, elusive behavior, and increased litigation costs, the democratic value it contains cannot be ignored. Moreover, on the whole, the jury system is closely linked to the overall political and cultural values of the West, which is a good embodiment of democratic ideas in the judicial system.