The Twelfth Juror

There’s an old movie called Twelve Angry Men. If you haven’t seen it, you probably know the story.

Twelve men are deciding the fate of a young man accused of murder. Eleven are ready to convict. One isn’t. He refuses to go along because he isn’t convinced. He asks questions. He irritates people. He makes them go through the evidence again. And slowly, one by one, the other jurors begin to reconsider.

We used to think there was something admirable about that.

Apparently not anymore.

The jury in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial deadlocked 11–1. Clancy admitted killing her three children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, just 8 months old. The question was whether she should be held criminally responsible because of her mental condition at the time.

Eleven jurors said no. One wouldn't go along.

And now they're coming for him.

Several jurors went on television to blame him for the mistrial. Clancy's defense attorney publicly attacked him. The media started digging into his background. His race, approximate age and details from his personal legal history have all been reported.

Think about that. The government ordered this man to report for jury duty, put him in a room, presented him with the evidence and told him to reach his own conclusion about whether a woman who killed her three children was criminally responsible.

He did exactly what he was supposed to do. He refused to excuse the killing of three children.

And now the people who wanted a different verdict are trying to make him pay for it.

The whole point of requiring a unanimous verdict is that the twelfth juror matters. Eleven people don't get to tell him what to think. Neither does the judge, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the media or anyone else.

In fact, the jury box may be one of the few places left in America where an ordinary citizen has real power to resist consensus. He doesn't need a title, a law degree, a large following or the approval of some institution. If the evidence doesn't convince him, he can simply say no. And his no matters just as much as the eleven votes on the other side.

That's what makes the campaign against this juror so disturbing. The Left has become increasingly intolerant of people it can't force into line. We've watched this happen everywhere else. Say the wrong thing and lose your job. Question the approved position and get shouted down. Disagree publicly and someone starts digging through your past.

Now we've reached the jury room.

And this is where it gets dangerous.

Imagine being the lone holdout in the next controversial trial. You believe the other eleven are wrong, but you also watched what happened to this guy. You know your fellow jurors might go on television. You know the lawyers might attack you publicly. You know reporters might start looking into your life and your family.

Do you stick to your guns?

Or do you raise your hand and go home?

That's how you destroy a jury system without ever changing a law.

There is also something deeply perverse about the moral priorities on display here. Lindsay Clancy killed three children. There has been enormous sympathy for her because of her mental illness. And some of that is understandable. Postpartum psychosis is real, and what happened to this family is horrific.

But apparently our capacity for understanding has limits.

There is endless room to understand the woman who killed Cora, Dawson and Callan. There is considerably less room to understand the man who couldn't bring himself to say she wasn't responsible for killing them.

He was right to refuse to excuse the killing of three children. He was also fully entitled to stand against the other eleven. That's why we have twelve jurors. That's why we require unanimity. And that's why the ability of one citizen to stand against eleven isn't some annoying defect in the system.

It's one of its protections.

We used to understand that. We even made movies celebrating it.

Now the message is different.

You can be the twelfth juror.

Just make sure you vote the right way.