8th Juror: It's very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And no matter where you run… — Reginald Rose
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. 66Source: 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
11th Juror: I beg pardon, in discussing-
10th Juror: I beg pardon. What are you so damn polite about?
11th Juror: For the same reason you're not. It's the way I was brought up.
p. 57
