After Juror 8 points out inconsistencies in the prosecution's case and raises a number of questions, he throws down a cheap knife he bought near the courthouse which appears almost identical to the murder weapon. Finishing his exposition, Juror 4 offhandedly remarks that "everyone knows slums breed criminals," leading Juror 5, who until this point has remained silent, to declare with great dignity that he was raised in a slum.
In addition, a shopkeeper identified the murder weapon as identical to an unusual and ornately carved knife he had sold the boy shortly before the murder. The prosecution has presented two seemingly reliable eyewitnesses, and motivation for the murder was suggested by the youth's frequent fights with his father.
Juror 4, a middle-aged and articulate stockbroker, and Juror 6, a young blue-collar worker, go over the evidence which determined their verdicts with much detail and thought. The salesman, the garage owner and the businessman all suggest that the boy's ethnicity and class have been enough to convince them he murdered his father, while Juror 2, a shy and stammering bank clerk, appears to be maintaining his guilty verdict because he feels intimidated by the more outspoken jurors. Wishing to restore calm, Juror 12, a young advertising executive, suggests that each juror present the reasons behind his verdict as a means of convincing Juror 8. Juror 10, approximately sixty years old and the owner of a garage, gruffly declares that the architect is a weak-willed "bleeding heart" before launching into a diatribe against slum dwellers. Juror 8, a sensitive and thoughtful architect, casts the only dissenting vote, stating that he has doubts about the case and wishes to give the boy, who has had a difficult life in the ghetto, a fair hearing. Juror 1, the foreman, who is a genial high school football coach, conducts a preliminary ballot and, without hesitation, eleven jurors vote for conviction.
Once in the stiflingly hot jury room, Juror 3, a middle-aged businessman who is estranged from his own son, loudly proclaims that the boy is guilty and that all ghetto youths are criminals, while Juror 7, a fast-talking salesman, wants the jury to reach a decision quickly because he wishes to attend a baseball game that evening. At the close of a murder trial conducted in a New York City courtroom, the judge gives the jury its final instructions, reminding them that a guilty verdict will mean an automatic death sentence for the defendant, a Puerto Rican youth accused of killing his father.
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