The Good, the Bad, or the Indifferent: 12 Angry Men in Russia
2007; Chicago–Kent College of Law; Volume: 82; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0009-3599
Autores Tópico(s)Law in Society and Culture
ResumoSidney Lumet’s 1957 film, 12 Angry Men, based on the screenplay by Reginald Rose,1 is an icon of Hollywood cinematography and, in all countries where it has been shown, has become the emblem of the American jury trial as an anti-authoritarian institution based on democratic consensusbuilding.2 But it is possible that the film has had no greater overseas impact than in Russia for a variety of reasons.3 The first of these reasons is the fact that the jury trial has played a major role in the creation of the judicial selfconsciousness of the Russian people since it was first introduced by Tsar Alexander II in 1864 as part of the great judicial reforms following the abolition of serfdom in 1861. Juries were praised by liberal and left-wing critics when they engaged in jury nullification to acquit revolutionary activists, normal people charged with crimes such as violations of the passport laws, which jurors felt were unjust, or people for whom the jury had sufficient sympathy to want to spare them a sentence of forced labor in exile in Siberia.4 But it was also criticized in the great Russian literary classics for its unjust convictions of the innocent.5 Thus, the jury in Russia, like the
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