There were many times when the jury's composition positively affected the accused. One example of this was with Juror Number Nine. Juror Number Nine was an elderly man who was portrayed very early in the movie as a sweet, fragile old man who could easily get lost in a crowd. The movie hinted that people never paid Juror Number Nine much attention all his life, and because of that he can relate to others who feel the same way. .
A key witness in the movie was also an old man who was also ignored his whole life. The old man said that he heard the young boy on trial say "I am going to kill you" to his father, and although this would be convincing evidence to many jurors, Juror Number Nine picked up on the fact that subconsciously the old man many be making this up just for attention. .
Once Juror Number Nine was able to come to this realization, the other jurors figured out that it must have taken the old man longer to walk to the window than he said it and therefore due to timing, there would have been no way the old man's story could be completely true. Because Juror Number Nine was able to relate to the old man, he was able to get inside of his head and see that the old man might be making up his story. Without Juror Number Nine's observations about the old man, the boy might have been found guilty; therefore the jury's composition positively affected the accused. .
There was another jury member who positively affected the accused because of where he was from. This particular jury member was not from a good part of town and was around knifes his whole life. He was the only jury member who had ever seen a knife fight, and because of that he knew how knifes worked. All of the jurors agreed that the boy on trial probably knew how to use a knife properly, but as this particular juror pointed out, the angle the knife went into the father's chest meant that the knife was used improperly. This got the other jurors into thinking that maybe the boy did not kill his father, once again positively affecting the accused.
