Chief Justice Roberts, ‘12 Angry Men’ and the Importance of Dissent in Democracy
A brief note in the recent edition of SCOTUS Blog shared word of the Supreme Court Justices’ favorite movies. While the Justices are typically guarded in talking about their private lives and activities, Chief Justice John Roberts was enthusiastic in discussing his favorite films, and we credit him for exalting an American classic, “12 Angry Men,” which trumpets the importance of facts, truth, justice, accountability and the willingness to resist unwarranted conformity. Roberts, in a 2012 lecture at Rice University, said that he had watched it again, with “my young children. I think it’s extraordinarily inspirational; it tells you a lot about American justice.”
The film’s emphasis on the right to dissent, a subtle jab at the repression of McCarthyism that had engulfed our nation in the 1950s, is a critical lesson in civic education. You’re right in thinking that we should not award a medal to a sitting member of the Supreme Court for touting these fundamental principles and virtues of the rule of law, because if these are not integral to the thinking and values of a Justice, then that person should not be on the nation’s High Bench.
“12 Angry Men,” a 1957 film that starred Henry Fonda as the lone juror unwilling to find a defendant guilty of murder, which meant the electric chair, dramatically portrays, with the aid of an award winning cast, the tensions, biases, prejudices, family problems and desires of 11 jurors willing to overlook facts critical to the case for various reasons which, in the end, would result in a profound injustice. Fonda’s character, “Juror 8,” boasts the backbone of an Oak Tree in questioning assumptions and racial biases that lay behind the initial jury vote to find the defendant guilty and take away his life lightly.
“Juror 8’s” vigorous questioning of the deep-seated biases and groundless assumptions driving the thinking of fellow citizens serving on the jury illuminates the importance in a democracy of challenging the thoughts and rationales of policymakers in the legislative, executive and judicial branches. The framers of the Bill of Rights incorporated in the First Amendment fundamental protections for freedom of speech, precisely to encourage and protect dissent.
The founders, part of the greatest generation of dissenters in our nation’s history, indeed, in world history, clearly understood the need to question authority in our democracy. Speech challenging, critiquing and criticizing governmental policies, programs, actions and laws often reveals flaws that can be corrected and improved. Candid, robust freedom of speech, particularly arguments against the words and deeds of our elected representatives was, in the view of the founders, an exercise in patriotism. If you love your country, you criticize governmental officials—at the local, state and national levels—to promote the general welfare, the public good and the national interest in the name of the pursuit of happiness.
Citizen participation in the public square and resistance to conformity, the status quo, flawed and dangerous policies, through dissenting speech, has been upheld time and again by the Supreme Court. Dissenting speech is a point of distinction in a democracy, a vital counterpoint to authoritarianism. It could not enjoy a more impressive pedigree. After dissenting from British laws that curbed their freedoms, the colonists hailed freedom of speech as a weapon against tyranny. They enshrined speech in the First Amendment and founder after founder praised its virtues.
The repression of speech by those in power reflects ignorance of America’s fundamental values and greatest traditions. Governmental repression, moreover, reflects the deeply flawed premise that those in power boast infallible judgment. For their part, the founders rejected the concept of human infallibility. Nothing in the course of human events across a vista of 250 years has demonstrated the infallibility of presidents, members of Congress and Supreme Court Justices. It is the engine of critical speech, the exercise of the right to dissent, that can expose impoverished ideas, flawed programs and menacing actions. Democracy, as it has often been depicted, is a system which champions government of, by and for the people.
Resistance to conformity, the exercise of dissent, as a demonstration of courage and good judgment, and commitment to facts, truths, accountability and justice, whether undertaken by “Juror 8” or Martin Luther King or any number of patriots across the centuries, reflects belief in the idea that freedom of speech is central to America’s success.