1. A teenager is accused of murdering his father. His fate rests with 12 jurors. “He doesn’t stand a chance,” mutters the courtroom guard. As the jurors deliberate, the impulse to quickly convict is thwarted by one holdout, who insists on a close evaluation of the evidence. Slowly, without hectoring rhetoric or even firm belief in the youth’s innocence, he argues the case for further questioning. Then gradually and in different ways, other jurors begin to change their minds, a development that fuels simmering tension and threatens volatile confrontation. Prejudices, passions, and human failings collide in a search for truth as a young man’s life hangs in the balance. A taut and absorbing drama as compelling now as when it was written.