3rd Juror: Now listen to me, you people. I've seen all kinds of dishonesty in my day - but this little… — Reginald Rose
3rd Juror: Now listen to me, you people. I've seen all kinds of dishonesty in my day - but this little display takes the cake. You come in here with your sanctimonious talk about slum kids and injustice, and you make up some wild stories, and all of a sudden you start getting through to some of these old ladies in here. Well, you're not getting through to me. I've had enough. What's the matter with you people? Every one of you knows this kid is guilty. He's got to burn. We're letting him slip through our fingers here.
8th Juror: Slip through our fingers? Are you his executioner?
3rd Juror: I'm one of 'em.
8th Juror: Maybe you'd like to pull the switch.
3rd Juror: For this kid? You bet I'd like to pull the switch.
8th Juror: I'm sorry for you.
3rd Juror: Don't start with me now.
8th Juror: Ever since we walked into this room you've been behaving like a self-appointed public avenger.
3rd Juror: I'm telling you now! Shut up!
8th Juror: You want to see this boy die because you personally want it, not because of the facts.
3rd Juror: Shut up!
8th Juror: You're a sadist!
3rd Juror: Shut up, you son of a bitch!
p. 47Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0
More from this book
5th Juror: You still don't think there's any room for reasonable doubt?
7th Juror: No, I don't.
11th Juror: Pardon. Maybe you don't understand the term "reasonable doubt."
7th Juror: What d'ya mean, I don't understand it? Who the hell are you to talk to me like that? How d'ya like this guy? I'm tellin' ya they're all alike. He comes over to this country running for his life and before he can even take a big breath he's telling us how to run the show. The arrogance of the guy!
5th Juror: You mean you're calling him arrogant because he wasn't born here? Well, I'm calling you arrogant because you were. How's that?
p. 55
10th Juror: What are we sitting here for?
8th Juror: Maybe for no reason. I don't know. Look, this boy's been kicked around all his life. You know-living in a slum his mother dead since he was nine. He spent a year and a half in an orphanage while his father served a jail term for forgery. That's not a very good head start. He's had a pretty terrible sixteen years. I think maybe we owe him a few words. That's all.
p. 16
8th Juror: It's very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And no matter where you run into it, prejudice obscures the truth. Well, I don't think any real damage has been done here. Because I don't really know what the truth is. No one ever will, I suppose. Nine of us now seem to feel that the defendant is innocent, but we're just gambling on probabilities. We may be wrong. We may be trying to return a guilty man to the community. No one can really know. But we have a reasonable doubt, and this is the safeguard that has enormous value in our system. No jury can declare a man guilty unless it's sure.
p. 66
