In a group, the minority always obeys the majority, but this film tells a story of the victory of the minority, which is not only the victory of the rule of law, but also a classic in psychology. Let's make a psychological interpretation of the jury system embodied in the film.
The jury system is a system in which state organs represented by Britain and the United States absorb a certain number of ordinary citizens to participate in criminal cases and civil cases. It is generally believed that it originated from the Anglo-Saxon people. At first, this system was designed to protect the privileges of authoritarian governments politically. The real establishment of this system was realized through a series of imperial edicts issued by Henry II.
Due to the lack of police system, inconvenient communication and poor social organization in the feudal dynasty at that time, the judicial efficiency was quite low. When the case happened, it was difficult to find out the case and catch the fugitive without asking for help from the local people. At the same time, ordinary British people also have a desire to resist the judge's disobedience to matter of justice and get a fair judgment. Therefore, under the strong collision of two requirements for different purposes, the jury system naturally emerged in the king's law.
The imperial edict of Clarington of 1 166 stipulates that after a criminal case occurs, the county court and hundreds of courts will summon 12 freemen who are familiar with the local situation to take an oath in court and file charges against the suspect. 1 176 also stipulates that after the circuit court arrives in a county, it should form a prosecution jury, which is responsible for prosecuting criminal suspects in the county, also called a grand jury. Later, the small jury gradually separated. Grand juries are only used in criminal cases to decide whether to prosecute suspects. Small juries can be applied to civil and criminal cases.
Generally speaking, in cases with witnesses, the probability of a suspect being convicted will increase. Moreover, the more specific and convincing the witness's testimony description is, it is easy to be adopted by jurors and judges. But what is the psychological state of the witness when he provides these testimonies? Is it credible enough?
(1) What you see may not be true. The human brain is not a video recorder, so intuition and memory will go wrong. Witnesses sometimes testify that the people they see are not the people they see, and even witnesses make "perjury" out of blind self-confidence or selfishness.
One of the two witnesses in the film is the lame old man downstairs. He said that he heard something falling upstairs. 15 seconds quickly walked to the door and saw the boy running downstairs. Is it true?/You don't say. /You don't say. No, juror No.8 passed the live simulation, and it took the lame old man 4 1 second to walk out of the room to the door.
What kind of psychology did the old man give false testimony?
According to psychological explanation, the elderly are out of a recognized psychological need. A lame old man in rags may not be seen or heard by anyone for a long time, let alone sitting in court in front of the police and so many people. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Therefore, the old man made perjury in order to make "important remarks" in front of everyone, to have a sense of existence, and to be vanity for a while.
(2) Restatement can easily strengthen the confidence of witnesses in false testimony. Retelling an event will make it easier for people to believe what they recall. The more times they repeat, the easier it is for us to believe that the fallacy is true. And these perjury may make jurors make a guilty verdict on innocent people.
There are two witnesses in the film, and the other is a middle-aged woman upstairs opposite. She said that she was lying in bed at night and happened to see the other side. When the tram passed by, she looked through the windows of the last two carriages and saw the boy stab his father.
Before she appeared in court, she was questioned by the police and she stated the above testimony. When she faced the judge again, with the increase of restatements, she was more convinced that her testimony was right and what she saw was true. At the same time, when she faced the judges and jurors, she testified against the boy out of a psychology of pleasing and catering to the listeners, and at the same time regarded herself as a witness of the victim.
The jury will be influenced by many factors when deciding a case, including the characteristics of the suspect and the instructions of the judge.
(1) The characteristics of the suspect. "Whether you have a good impression on the defendant will prejudice the judgment." Jurors rarely accept the innocence of people they don't like. On the contrary, jurors rarely judge people who like them. The suspect's political faction, ethnic origin, social status, self-image, similarity with jurors and other factors will subtly affect the jury's judgment.
The suspect in the movie is a boy who grew up in a slum. Because of his background, number two, number three, number three. 12 10 of the people's jurors means that they are biased against him, especially not. 10, which strongly shows that people in slums are alcoholics and full of violent tendencies. Of course, because his background is similar to that of Juror No.5, Juror No.5 quickly changed his judgment and thought the boy was innocent.
(2) the judge's instructions. In court, we often see such a situation that the suspect or his defense lawyer shows the innocence and embarrassment of the suspect through specific things, and even says that I was forced. Although the opposing lawyer said loudly, "I object!" The judge also said that the objection was sustained. But does it really work?
There is a kind of "rebellious psychology" in psychology. When someone reminds you not to look at your nose, you will subconsciously look at your nose. Similarly, when the judge instructs to ignore the above information, jurors will become sensitive to this information, which may have changed their analysis of the case, so-called "what is done is done."
(3) Other factors. The severity of the judgment of the suspect will also affect the verdict of the jury. If the possible penalty is light, the jury may not be particularly serious, but if the penalty is heavy, just like the boy in the movie will be sent to the electric chair, so 12 the jury is very cautious.
At the same time, the experience of the people who participated in the jury will also affect the final decision. Just like some jurors in movies, many of them have no experience at all, don't know how to perform their duties well, and even just want to end this gloomy discussion early so that they can go back to watch a ball game.
In addition, the victim's situation will also have an impact. If the victim is an influential person, it may be unfavorable to the suspect. However, if the victim has a criminal record and carries a murder weapon, the suspect may be light or even innocent.
The jury consists of 12 or more people, and everyone will bring their own attitude and personality into the team. When discussing a case, jurors' understanding ability, their own state and personal experience will affect their judgment, and jurors will also influence each other.
(A) the psychological impact of jurors' understanding ability. When the judge said that the analysis of the case should be based on the dominant, clear, credible and conclusive evidence, but these have different understandings and reactions among different jurors. Some jurors understand the meaning and carefully verify the evidence, just like jurors No.8 and No.9, constantly thinking, simulating and analyzing all kinds of evidence. On the other hand, some jurors came to a conclusion prematurely. Of course, human beings do have a tendency to judge prematurely, especially bloody and angry men like juror No.3 in the film.
Moreover, some jurors always miss the main points for various reasons, pay attention to some irrelevant issues, and even succumb to unrecognized prejudice, full of sympathy or hatred. Juror 10 in the film is the best example. He has always been obsessed with prejudice against slum dwellers, regardless of the evidence and facts of the case itself.
(B) the psychological impact of the real-time status of jurors. Jurors' own real-time status will also affect their own judgment. Discussion room layout, temperature sense, health status, work annoyance, etc. It will have an impact, and with the passage of discussion time, repeated discussion and voting will make some people feel annoyed or tired, which will affect their judgment.
The discussion in the film was held on a sultry afternoon, and the electric fan in the room was temporarily broken. Everyone was sweating profusely, and the jurors were obviously impatient and even quarreled and fought. Juror No.7 is still thinking about the ball game, 10 is quite dissatisfied with the delay in doing business in his garage. All these have a negative impact on the analysis of the case.
(3) The psychological influence of jurors' personal experiences. The most obvious example in the film is juror No.3, who has a bad relationship with his son. After the fight, his son ran away from home and he was very dissatisfied with his son's behavior. This experience of No.3 led to his prejudice against the boy who killed his father in the discussion, which was the psychological influence of his personal experience on his judgment.
Juror No.5 was born in a slum and felt the same way about the boy. He is sensitive to other people's criticism of slum people. He can think and analyze cases from the suspect's point of view, including the use of murder weapons. These experiences also influenced the judgment and analysis of No.5.
Although No.8 in the movie successfully persuaded other 1 1 jurors, the boy was finally acquitted. But it is rare in real life, but it is a possible situation. How did the "minority victory" come about?
(A) the spiritual characteristics of ethnic minorities. The reason why the minority can gradually gain the upper hand in constant discussion comes from some characteristics of the minority to some extent. For example, the minority is confident and constantly expresses their opinions. All these make the minority take the initiative, and combined with the in-depth analysis of the evidence of the case, we can continue to win support and finally turn defeat into victory.
(2) Adhere to the spirit of the rule of law. Adhering to the spirit of the rule of law is the duty of jurors and the significance of this system. Based on the consideration that "the law does not exist for punishment", a few people will not easily draw conclusions as long as they have doubts. In the film, No.8 is an outstanding representative of this spirit. From the beginning, he had doubts about the evidence, material evidence and details of the case. He kept proving and simulating. In this insistence on the spirit of the rule of law, he won.
(3) Calm thinking in the group. Generally speaking, it is difficult to avoid conformity in a group, and it is always difficult to be a minority. But if the minority can keep calm and not blindly follow, there may be a possibility of success. At the beginning of the film, No.8 was in a difficult situation, and he gave in a little. "If all of you 1 1 think you are guilty in the second vote, I will compromise." Fortunately, his calm thinking won the admiration of neighbor No.9 and turned the situation around.
Of course, the audience will have two questions when watching the movie: first, except for No.8, No.4, 1 1, all the jurors are very unprofessional, which is just a joke about the law. Second, the loopholes in the case evidence were not discovered by the police, but by this group of "unprofessional detectives". Is the police handling the case "joking"?
These two doubts are also problems encountered in the development of jury system. Therefore, in order to reduce mistakes, on the one hand, the following practitioners strengthened the training of police interrogators and trained them in the skills of questioning witnesses in order to better understand the true face of the case. On the other hand, it is to strengthen the training of jurors and improve their mastery of legal procedures, defense standards and the resolution of testimony evidence. At the same time, a jury isolation system is set up to isolate jurors from outside information and ensure their neutrality.
The above content is an extension of the film, so I won't repeat it.
Welcome to pay attention to the bright moon in Yulin, love movies that reflect life, and pay attention to life more exciting than movies.
Reference content:
1. Jury system, Baidu Encyclopedia.
2. Social Psychology, People's Posts and Telecommunications Publishing House, eleventh edition.