Conclusion: Casey Anthony’s Freedom Was Inevitable

From our analysis of the 12 jurors in the movie “Twelve Angry Men”, what did we learn? It’s that any one particular value system doesn’t limit a person’s response to any stimulus. Influences it, yes, but does not limit it.

Take money for example:

• “Show me the money” (Purple and red)
• Savings, security (Blue)
• More the better, get ahead, win (Orange)
• More money, more “good” they can do (Green)

An example closer to the Casey Anthony trial: “Killing”

•  For power (red)
• I’m right, your wrong, like a terrorist (blue)
• Destroy environment or their causes and your dead (green)
• Do away with their status, goodies; hire someone to do it (orange)
• For family (purple)

When studying value systems, you ask what’s the motivation? Ask what is the trigger? Watch actions / deeds – just not what a person says. To accurately determine what happened in
the Casey Anthony trial, we would have had to observer the interaction in the jury room. Obviously, we can’t do that.

What we can to is understand the trends in value systems and then apply it to the 12 jurors. There is a lot more green in Europe than in the U.S. In Asia/Pacific, orange is emerging big time. What is the world teaching today? Empowerment, teams, compassion for people – hence, the United States is trending towards orange and green.

In addition, there appears to be a new ‘color’ emerging in the world – Coral. Coral’s characteristics could be:

• More unified control (new world order)
• More global than other colors (World Bank)
• New kind of expressiveness
• Not many turquoise around yet, hence, less corals to date.

You may have noticed that the sequencing of value systems alternate between “we” and “I” systems – Purple (we) –then- Red (I) –then- Blue (we) –then’ Orange (I)…

If we look at the composite of value systems from our analysis of the characters in the movie we find:

• Purple (we) – 1 classic purple
• Red (I) – 1 red w/ orange
• Blue (we) – 2 healthy blue, 1 blue w/ purple, 2 blue w/ orange, 2 blue w/ green, 1 unhealthy blue
• Orange (I) – 1 orange, 1 orange w/ green
• Green (we) – 0
• Yellow (I) – 0
• Turquoise (we) - 0

9 of the 12 jurors were operating in a ‘we’ value system. Is it any surprise that they ultimately reach a consensus? Look at their leader, Henry Fonda – Strong (healthy) orange with a lot of green. As you study the traits of orange (opportunity for success; progress and achievement; competitive advantage; bigger and better; new and improved), the 8 blues and 1 purple were eventually going to side with
Fonda. That left only 1 orange (ad man) and 1 red w/ orange (the baseball fan) to join the majority.

Given the movie was made in 1957, we need to estimate how much have the value systems moved, matured, and in what direction, since then? Since WWII until about 1980 the United States was THE manufacturing center of the world that wasn’t bombed out of existence. America built it, the world bought it. Value systems must have transitions with this explosion of capitalism.

Let’s assume for a moment that most of the jurors in the Casey Anthony case are at least 30 years old. Many were probably born in the 60s and 70s and influenced by what is described above. Let’s also assume that the 12 jurors in the movie were a mirco-view of America’s value systems in the late 1950s. As the country entered the 1960s most of these 12 value systems probably matured / migrated to at
least one level in the model. As the orange value system is the dominant value system in our society today, this is a plausible assumption.

If true, Casey Anthony had a jury that was made up of a mixture of value systems something like:

• Purple (we) – 0
• Red (I) – 1 (evolving from purple…)
• Blue (we) – 1 (evolving from red…)
• Orange (I) – 8 (evolving from blue…)
• Green (we) – 2 (evolving from orange…)
• Yellow (I) – 0
• Turquoise (we) 0

What are the characteristics of the orange value system?

• Take risks but will study situation for best solution (review the hard evidence in detail)
• World is full of opportunities (chance to get ahead, world is an oyster)
• Success / materialistic, status symbols
• Reward on performance
• Works towards the long term plan (get the trial behind them, and go home)
• Bend rules
• Tell you part-of-the-truth (not speaking to media immediately after the trial)
• They want to win (they worked together in a common verdict)
• They will learn how to play the game (followed the judges’ instructions to the letter)

The positive contribution of this ‘orange’ stage is its embrace of reason, its optimism about human potential, and its empowerment of the individual. External authorities lose power. Democracy is born. The scientific worldview, which believes only in what it can see and touch, replaces the myths of both the warrior (Red) and the traditionalist (Blue) value systems.

If 8 of 12 jurors were operating within the orange value system and believed “in what we can see and touch” (e.g. – hard evidence, cause of death), It becomes clear why they chose the verdict of not-guilty. Three more jurors were operating within “we” value systems and would eventually join the majority (similar as in “Twelve Angry Men”). The lone ‘red’ would have hated to be embarrassed, hence joined
the majority.

• Tell you part-of-the-truth

Many of the Casey Anthony jurors reportedly cried in the jury room once they decided a verdict. None said she was innocent. With no cause of death, they couldn’t identify the appropriate punishment.

• They want to win

They were NOT going to be a hung-jury.

I asked the question in yesterday’s blog, “Which Juror was Casey Anthony’s Henry Fonda?” Which juror(s) ‘got the ball rolling’? Once rolling, a ball that completed its journey in less than 12 hours? We’ll probably never know.

What we do know is that the value systems of each juror drove their actions, their reactions, and their decision. What would you have done? Responded accordingly based on your own value system? Yes!

Make sense? Or am I full of it? I can tell you that during the latter 1/2 of the 1990s I taught a business leadership class for a major corporation. We used Spiral Dynamics, the theory of human development introduced in the 1996 book Spiral Dynamics by Don Beck and Chris Cowan. In 30 to 40 sessions around the world, I have observed hundreds of people watch the movie ‘Twelve Angry Men’ and then analyze the 12 juror’s value system behaviors. I thank them for their insights that I used in this series of blogs…

You be the judge  jury – based on your value system, of course.

Drink one for me,

Woody

~ by Frank Wood on 8 July 2011.