Watching the Cameron Newton saga unfold on television and the internet shows us, among many things, one particular truth: it doesn’t matter what probably happened, what matters is what can be proven. Now, I’m not going to jump on Cam for doing something he shouldn’t have, because I don’t know that he did. I don’t really think he’s telling the entire truth about the situation, but no one can prove that he knew what his father was doing. That means he’s innocent until proven otherwise. For all we know, Cecil Newton went to Mississippi State behind his son’s back. And if that’s really the case, how is it fair to condemn Cam when there’s even a possibility that he did nothing wrong? Obviously there are people smarter than I am who have looked into this, and know more than I about the topic, but I just think it’s interesting how quick we are to jump this guy who’s just a kid with little to no evidence. Sometimes, though, I guess that stuff doesn’t matter. Some people take out their problems on others for no reason other than it’s easy to do.
Newton illustrates an important point of the American Justice system: in a court of law, it doesn’t matter what probably happened, what matters is what actually happened. “A Few Good Men” makes this distinction often. It’s not enough that Lt. Kaffe knows his clients received an order, he must prove that not only did they get the order, he also has to show that there has been a cover-up by the people in charge, so they can be protected. The Law makes these demands because it has to. A truly fair justice system can never truly happen because it’s based off of flawed people controlling it. Mistakes happen; this is the way the world is. The American Legal system is designed to avoid this, but, like all institutions of man, it is only as effective as the people who take part in it. Luckily, though, the burden of proof is on the prosecution. Sometimes, the wrong person goes to jail, but that has been reduced by this system. Unfortunately, this means that sometimes the right person goes free, but this may very well be the best we can do. The job is left up to a group of the defendant’s peers. That, to me has to be scary for everyone involved. If the prosecutor is wrong, if the defendant is in the wrong place, if the judge makes a crucial decision, if the jury doesn’t talk long enough, someone’s life is greatly affected. The jury itself is one of the worst parts, I’d imagine, because they never asked to be part of the system, they just are, and they have to decide whether someone should go free or be sent to jail. What’s worse, to me, is that these people will never know if they’ve done the right thing or not.
This is the problem we see in “12 Angry Men” Sydney Lumet’s first voyage into the American justice system. The film opens as the judge finishes his instructions to the jury, and for the next two hours, we live with these men. We know as much about them as they know about one another. We discover who they are as the discussions in the room continue and as they each begin to state their opinions and their experiences as a way to judge the case of a defendant we barely see. The way they describe him, though, throughout the deliberation, it feels like we know him, it feels like we can see everything they describe to us even though we’re stuck in that room with them. What’s great about the film is that you feel everything the jurors feel. The heat, the anger, all of it, comes crashing through the screen, and the drama becomes palpable. One by one, the jurors state how they feel and why they feel that way, and we get a glimpse, nothing more and nothing less into their soul for a limited amount of time as they show who they really are to a group of people they’ve never met before and will never see again. The constraints of tact and courtesy slowly chip away until all we’re left with is twelve men as they really are. They become passionate about something that, a few minutes earlier, meant little to nothing to them, they examine the evidence further than the attorneys in the courtroom ever dreamed of doing, they work off each other, feeding each others passions and arguments. It is one of the finest ensemble pieces ever performed and that’s because each of the actors show every detail of these characters that they can in the little time we’re with them. Their speech patterns, how loudly they speak, even the way they sweat speaks to who they are, and they play off of one another perfectly. Reasonable doubt is all it takes, but there are plenty in that room who refuse to give it because of one reason or another. Bigotry, personal attachments, even faulty expectations all play a role in why some decide to vote guilty or not guilty. Lumet effectively shows us that each of these men bring an attitude with them from the outside world that affects their decision making so rendering a fair verdict without bias is all but impossible. The actors perform without any real breaks in the action, which might be why everything feels so real. When Lee J. Cobb leaps at Henry Fonda, there’s a sense that anything could happen, especially since every word Cobb utters is coated with a booming malice regardless of what he says. When Jack Klugman stands up to Ed Begley, it feels real. Everything, from the ad executives flip flopping to the old man’s speech to the sports fans frustration at losing his tickets to the foreigners explanation, all of it feels honest, because each of these men provide enough energy and honesty to make these characters come alive in a short amount of time. We see these men without masks or without pretense because the film delicately, but assertively, does away with those things as we go along as we go deeper and deeper into the case. The men represent distinct pieces of our culture that come together to do their civic duty and determine if a boy accused of committing a crime deserves to be part of society any more. The film brings the audience into it and challenges our assertions about what we should and shouldn’t accept and how deeply we look at other people. Because, in the end, we really don’t know anything. One of the characters even says as much to Fonda when he asks what happens if the boy really killed his father. But that’s not the point, really. The point, for better or for worse, is doing the best we can with the information we have presented. And that’s all anyone can be asked to do.
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