Juror 3

Juror 3 is classified as being sadistic, strong willed and intolerant of opinions that do not mirror his own, while showing a prejudice against children at the beginning of the text saying "It's these kids the way they are now" showing a generalization of the young. However, it appears he also has a prejudice against the elderly, as when he discusses the elderly witness he says "He was an old man, he was half-confused, and how would he know?" These prejudices he holds against the young man on trial and the elderly witness stand in his way when determining a verdict as his stubborn attitude makes him believe he is always correct. His stubbornness is shown almost immediately to the audience when Rose introduces his character having a conversation with Juror 2. Juror 3 tries to bully his opinion onto the 2nd Juror, saying "it always amazes me the way these lawyers can talk, and talk and talk, even when the case is as obvious as this one. I mean did you ever hear so much talk about nothing." These bullying tactics attempt to give Juror 3 authority over the other jurors, while also trying to seem sincere as he continues "Everybody deserves a fair trial... I'm the last one to say anything against it." Juror 3 is shocked when he realises that his tactics are not persuading the other jurors, especially number 8. This doesn't sit well with him as he already angry and bitter about the jury not being able to reach a verdict, as he cannot push his opinion successfully onto the others. As he is the head of his own company, he isn't used to being met with resistance to his opinions, which further irritates him and causes him to lose his cool.

Juror 3 begins the play with a normal tone, having a private conversation with Juror 2, however as the play progresses and more jurors begin to vote not guilty, his tone and verbal assaults increase, particularly to Juror 8. This is because Juror 3 is the foil character, a character whose actions contrast and juxtapose another's. As Juror 8 only wants to debunk the evidence and show that the jury cannot convict the boy beyond all reasonable doubt, Juror 3, to amplify the decisions and actions Juror 8 is taking, completely disagrees and wants to convict the child purely because of his generalization of children. Juror 3 is also seen as a hypocrite, claiming that Juror 8 is manipulating the evidence, while manipulating the evidence himself claiming that the old man didn't know what was going on, that the women could see the killing through the el-train, that the boy would come back for the knife three hours later and that the old man could have seen the boy and heard him immediately after the murder.

At the end of Act 1 we see Juror 3's temper rise, claiming that he was going to kill Juror 8 and when he seemingly wants to stab him with the experiment of the switch knife. All this boils down as juror by juror slowly isolate themselves