Juror #8 (Henry Fonda)’s Timeline and Summary
- When all the other jurors sit down to give a verdict, #8 keeps staring out the window until the foreman asks him to sit down. It's clear there's something weighing on him.
- The jurors all sit down and take a vote. Eleven of them vote Guilty, and Juror #8 is the only person who votes Not Guilty. The verdict has to be unanimous, so the men all sigh and try to convince Juror #8 why he's wrong.
- Juror #8 says he just wants to talk about the case before sending the defendant off to the electric chair. But the longer he talks, the more the men realize that he's trying to convince them to change their minds.
- Eventually, Juror #8 gives up and says that he'll go with a Guilty verdict if all eleven other jurors vote Guilty again. The vote goes around the room and this time, only ten vote for Guilty. The old Juror #9 has changed his mind, and now the room has to deal with two men voting Not Guilty.
- One of the biggest pieces of evidence against the defendant is the uniqueness of the knife he apparently used to kill his father. But Juror #8 blows this theory out of the water by reaching into his pocket and pulling out the exact same knife, which he bought for six bucks at a nearby store. The other jurors insist that this doesn't prove anything, though.
- Juror #8 takes another chunk out of the case by physically showing how one of the key witnesses (an old man) could not have possibly moved fast enough to see the defendant running from the murder scene. While he argues, more and more jurors come around to his way of looking at the case.
- At one point, the angry Juror #3 picks up the knife on the table and pretends to stab Juror #8 with it. The other jurors get ready to jump at him, but he's only pretending for the sake of showing how the kid could have stabbed his father.
- Finally, Juror #8 helps convince some of the last holdouts by showing them that the other key witness was almost certainly not wearing her glasses when she allegedly saw the boy kill his father. For most of the jurors, this is the final nail in the coffin, and the verdict eventually turns to Not Guilty.
- After finishing the trial, Juror #8 heads out of the courthouse and runs into the elderly Juror #9. They exchange names, and Juror #8 tells us for the first time in the movie that his name is Davis.
- And just like that, Juror #8's story is over.