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The 8th Juror serves as the play’s protagonist, and he is the first and most consistent voice of reason and compassion in the jury room. At the start of the play, the 8th Juror is the lone dissenter when all the other jurors vote to convict the boy of murder. Though the 8th Juror doesn’t necessarily think that the boy is innocent, he struggles with significant doubt and is incredibly skeptical of the prosecution’s case because he believes that they have created a version of events that is too certain. This doesn’t mesh with his view of the world as he believes that life is often filled with doubt and uncertainties. While many of the other jurors were swayed by the prosecution’s version of events and express certainty that the boy is guilty, the 8th Juror alone believes the case deserves some careful, meticulous reexamination indicative of the job which the jury was given.
Over the course of the play’s two acts, the 8th Juror is able to convince every other juror that there’s reasonable doubt in the case and that the boy should be acquitted. To achieve this, the 8th Juror must also illuminate to the other jurors their own biases and personal issues that may stand in the way of clear reasoning and assessment. For example, he struggles intensely against the 3rd Juror, who shares his history with his son and his beliefs about race and masculinity. The 8th Juror helps the 3rd Juror see that his personal issues are interfering with his ability to accurately assess the case. Seeing that the 10th Juror is fixated on the boy’s race to the detriment of the juror’s ability to be impartial, the 8th Juror consistently points out the errors in the 10th Juror’s logic until he is so thoroughly outsmarted that he has no choice but to concede. In this sense, the 8th Juror serves as the voice of American democracy itself by upholding the ideal that every person has the right to a fair trial regardless of race or class.
