The Art of Cross-Examination Part 8

Much depends upon the _sequence_ in which one conducts the cross-examination of a dishonest witness. You should never hazard the important question until you have laid the foundation for it in such a way that, when confronted with the fact, the witness can neither deny nor explain it. One often sees the most damaging doc.u.mentary evidence, in the form of letters or affidavits, fall absolutely flat as exponents of falsehood, merely because of the unskilful way in which they are handled. If you have in your possession a letter written by the witness, in which he takes an opposite position on some part of the case to the one he has just sworn to, avoid the common error of showing the witness the letter for identification, and then reading it to him with the inquiry, "What have you to say to that?" During the reading of his letter the witness will be collecting his thoughts and getting ready his explanations in antic.i.p.ation of the question that is to follow, and the effect of the damaging letter will be lost.

The correct method of using such a letter is to lead the witness quietly into repeating the statements he has made in his direct testimony, and which his letter contradicts. "I have you down as saying so and so; will you please repeat it? I am apt to read my notes to the jury, and I want to be accurate." The witness will repeat his statement. Then write it down and read it off to him. "Is that correct? Is there any doubt about it? For if you have any explanation or qualification to make, I think you owe it to us, in justice, to make it before I leave the subject."

The witness has none. He has stated the fact; there is nothing to qualify; the jury rather like his straightforwardness. Then let your whole manner toward him suddenly change, and spring the letter upon him.

"Do you recognize your own handwriting, sir? Let me read you from your own letter, in which you say,"--and afterward--"Now, what have you to say to that?" You will make your point in such fas.h.i.+on that the jury will not readily forget it. It is usually expedient, when you have once made your point, to drop it and go to something else, lest the witness wriggle out of it. But when you have a witness under oath, who is orally contradicting a statement he has previously made, when not under oath, but in his own handwriting, you then have him fast on the hook, and there is no danger of his getting away; now is the time to press your advantage. Put his self-contradictions to him in as many forms as you can invent:--

"Which statement is true?" "Had you forgotten this letter when you gave your testimony to-day?" "Did you tell your counsel about it?" "Were you intending to deceive him?" "What was your object in trying to mislead the jury?"[11]

[11] In Chapter XI (_infra_) is given in detail the cross-examination of the witness Pigott by Sir Charles Russell, which affords a most striking example of the most effective use that can be made of an incriminating letter.

"Some men," said a London barrister who often saw Sir Charles Russell in action, "get in a bit of the nail, and there they leave it hanging loosely about until the judge or some one else pulls it out. But when Russell got in a bit of the nail, he never stopped until he drove it home. No man ever pulled _that_ nail out again."

Sometimes it is advisable to deal the witness a stinging blow with your first few questions; this, of course, a.s.sumes that you have the material with which to do it. The advantage of putting your best point forward at the very start is twofold. First, the jury have been listening to his direct testimony and have been forming their own impressions of him, and when you rise to cross-examine, they are keen for your first questions.

If you "land one" in the first bout, it makes far more impression on the jury than if it came later on when their attention has begun to lag, and when it might only appear as a chance shot. The second, and perhaps more important, effect of scoring on the witness with the first group of questions is that it makes him afraid of you and less hostile in his subsequent answers, not knowing when you will trip him again and give him another fall. This will often enable you to obtain from him truthful answers on subjects about which you are not prepared to contradict him.

I have seen the most determined witness completely lose his presence of mind after two or three well-directed blows given at the very start of his cross-examination, and become as docile in the examiner's hands as if he were his own witness. This is the time to lead the witness back to his original story and give him the opportunity to tone it down or retint it, as it were; possibly even to switch him over until he finds himself supporting your side of the controversy. This taming of a hostile witness, and forcing him to tell the truth against his will, is one of the triumphs of the cross-examiner's art. In a speech to the jury, Choate once said of such a witness, "I brand him a vagabond and a villain; they brought him to curse, and, behold, he hath blessed us altogether."

Some witnesses, under this style of examination, lose their tempers completely, and if the examiner only keeps his own and puts his questions rapidly enough, he will be sure to lead the witness into such a web of contradictions as entirely to discredit him with any fair-minded jury. A witness, in anger, often forgets himself and speaks the truth. His pa.s.sion benumbs his power to deceive. Still another sort of witness displays his temper on such occasions by becoming sullen; he begins by giving evasive answers, and ends by refusing to answer at all.

He might as well go a little farther and admit his perjury at once, so far as the effect on the jury is concerned.

When, however, you have not the material at hand with which to frighten the witness into correcting his perjured narrative, and yet you have concluded that a cross-examination is necessary, never waste time by putting questions which will enable him to repeat his original testimony in the sequence in which he first gave it. You can accomplish nothing with him unless you abandon the train of ideas he followed in giving his main story. Select the weakest points of his testimony and the attendant circ.u.mstances he would be least likely to prepare for. Do not ask your questions in logical order, lest he invent conveniently as he goes along; but dodge him about in his story and pin him down to precise answers on all the accidental circ.u.mstances indirectly a.s.sociated with his main narrative. As he begins to invent his answers, put your questions more rapidly, asking many unimportant ones to one important one, and all in the same voice. If he is not telling the truth, and answering from memory and a.s.sociated ideas rather than from imagination, he will never be able to invent his answers as quickly as you can frame your questions, and at the same time correctly estimate the bearing his present answer may have upon those that have preceded it. If you have the requisite skill to pursue this method of questioning, you will be sure to land him in a maze of self-contradictions from which he will never be able to extricate himself.

Some witnesses, though unwilling to perjure themselves, are yet determined not to tell the _whole_ truth if they can help it, owing to some personal interest in, or relations.h.i.+p to, the party on whose behalf they are called to testify. If you are instructed that such a witness (generally a woman) is in possession of the fact you want and can help you if she chooses, it is your duty to draw it out of her. This requires much patience and ingenuity. If you put the direct question to her at once, you will probably receive a "don't remember" answer, or she may even indulge her conscience in a mental reservation and pretend a willingness but inability to answer. You must approach the subject by slow stages. Begin with matters remotely connected with the important fact you are aiming at. She will relate these, not perhaps realizing on the spur of the moment exactly where they will lead her. Having admitted that much, you can lead her nearer and nearer by successive approaches to the gist of the matter, until you have her in such a dilemma that she must either tell you what she had intended to conceal or else openly commit perjury. When she leaves the witness-chair, you can almost hear her whisper to her friends, "I never intended to tell it, but that man put me in such a position I simply had to tell or admit that I was lying."

In all your cross-examinations never lose control of the witness; confine his answers to the exact questions you ask. He will try to dodge direct answers, or if forced to answer directly, will attempt to add a qualification or an explanation which will rob his answer of the benefit it might otherwise be to you. And lastly, most important of all, let me repeat the injunction to be ever on the alert for _a good place to stop_. Nothing can be more important than to close your examination with a triumph. So many lawyers succeed in catching a witness in a serious contradiction; but, not satisfied with this, go on asking questions, and taper off their examination until the effect upon the jury of their former advantage is lost altogether. "Stop with a victory" is one of the maxims of cross-examination. If you have done nothing more than to expose an attempt to deceive on the part of the witness, you have gone a long way toward discrediting him with your jury. Jurymen are apt to regard a witness as a whole--either they believe him or they don't. If they distrust him, they are likely to disregard his testimony altogether, though much of it may have been true. The fact that remains uppermost in their minds is that he attempted to deceive them, or that he left the witness-stand with a lie upon his lips, or after he had displayed his ignorance to such an extent that the entire audience laughed at him. Thereafter his evidence is dismissed from the case so far as they are concerned.

Erskine once wasted a whole day in trying to expose to a jury the lack of mental balance of a witness, until a physician who was a.s.sisting him suggested that Erskine ask the witness whether he did not believe himself to be Jesus Christ. This question was put by Erskine very cautiously and with studied humility, accompanied by a request for forgiveness for the indecency of the question. The witness, who was at once taken unawares, amid breathless silence and with great solemnity exclaimed, "I am the Christ"--which soon ended the case.[12]

[12] "Curiosities of Law and Lawyers."

CHAPTER VII

SILENT CROSS-EXAMINATION

Nothing could be more absurd or a greater waste of time than to cross-examine a witness who has testified to no material fact against you. And yet, strange as it may seem, the courts are full of young lawyers--and alas! not only young ones--who seem to feel it their duty to cross-examine every witness who is sworn. They seem afraid that their clients or the jury will suspect them of ignorance or inability to conduct a trial. It not infrequently happens that such unnecessary examinations result in the development of new theories of the case for the other side; and a witness who might have been disposed of as harmless by mere silence, develops into a formidable obstacle in the case.

The infinite variety of types of witnesses one meets with in court makes it impossible to lay down any set rules applicable to all cases.

One seldom comes in contact with a witness who is in all respects like any one he has ever examined before; it is this that const.i.tutes the fascination of the art. The particular method you use in any given case depends upon the degree of importance you attach to the testimony given by the witness, even if it is false. It may be that you have on your own side so many witnesses who will contradict the testimony, that it is not worth while to hazard the risks you will necessarily run by undertaking an elaborate cross-examination. In such cases by far the better course is to keep your seat and ask no questions at all. Much depends also, as will be readily appreciated, upon the age and s.e.x of the witness. In fact, it may be said that the truly great trial lawyer is he who, while knowing perfectly well the established rules of his art, appreciates when they should be broken. If the witness happens to be a woman, and at the close of her testimony-in-chief it seems that she will be more than a match for the cross-examiner, it often works like a charm with the jury to practise upon her what may be styled the silent cross-examination. Rise suddenly, as if you intended to cross-examine.

The witness will turn a determined face toward you, preparatory to demolis.h.i.+ng you with her first answer. This is the signal for you to hesitate a moment. Look her over good-naturedly and as if you were in doubt whether it would be worth while to question her--and sit down. It can be done by a good actor in such a manner as to be equivalent to saying to the jury, "What's the use? she is only a woman."

John Philpot Curran, known as the most popular advocate of his time, and second only to Erskine as a jury lawyer, once indulged himself in this silent mode of cross-examination, but made the mistake of speaking his thoughts aloud before he sat down. "There is no use asking you questions, for I see the villain in your face." "Do you, sir?" replied the witness with a smile. "I never knew before that my face was a looking-gla.s.s."

Since the sole object of cross-examination is to break the force of the adverse testimony, it must be remembered that a futile attempt only strengthens the witness with the jury. It cannot be too often repeated, therefore, that saying nothing will frequently accomplish more than hours of questioning. It is experience alone that can teach us which method to adopt.

An amusing instance of this occurred in the trial of Alphonse Stephani, indicted for the murder of Clinton G. Reynolds, a prominent lawyer in New York, who had had the management and settlement of his father's estate. The defence was insanity; but the prisoner, though evidently suffering from the early stages of some serious brain disorder, was still not insane in the legal acceptation of the term. He was convicted of murder in the second degree and sentenced to a life imprisonment.

Stephani was defended by the late William F. Howe, Esq., who was certainly one of the most successful lawyers of his time in criminal cases. Howe was not a great lawyer, but the kind of witnesses ordinarily met with in such cases he usually handled with a skill that was little short of positive genius.

Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton, the eminent alienist, had made a special study of Stephani's case, had visited him for weeks at the Tombs Prison, and had prepared himself for a most exhaustive exposition of his mental condition. Dr. Hamilton had been retained by Mr. Howe, and was to be put forward by the defence as their chief witness. Upon calling him to the witness-chair, however, he did not question his witness so as to lay before the jury the extent of his experience in mental disorders and his familiarity with all forms of insanity, nor develop before them the doctor's peculiar opportunities for judging correctly of the prisoner's present condition. The wily advocate evidently looked upon District Attorney DeLancey Nicoll and his a.s.sociates, who were opposed to him, as a lot of inexperienced youngsters, who would cross-examine at great length and allow the witness to make every answer tell with double effect when elicited by the state's attorney. It has always been supposed that it was a preconceived plan of action between the learned doctor and the advocate. In accordance therewith, and upon the examination-in-chief, Mr. Howe contented himself with this single inquiry:--

"Dr. Hamilton, you have examined the prisoner at the Bar, have you not?"

"I have, sir," replied Dr. Hamilton.

"Is he, in your opinion, sane or insane?" continued Mr. Howe.

"Insane," said Dr. Hamilton.

"You may cross-examine," thundered Howe, with one of his characteristic gestures. There was a hurried consultation between Mr. Nicoll and his a.s.sociates.

"We have no questions," remarked Mr. Nicoll, quietly.

"What!" exclaimed Howe, "not ask the famous Dr. Hamilton a question?

Well, _I_ will," and turning to the witness began to ask him how close a study he had made of the prisoner's symptoms, etc.; when, upon our objection, Chief Justice Van Brunt directed the witness to leave the witness-box, as his testimony was concluded, and ruled that inasmuch as the direct examination had been finished, and there had been no cross-examination, there was no course open to Mr. Howe but to call his next witness!

Mr. Sergeant Ballantine in his autobiography, "Some Experiences of a Barrister's Life," gives an account of the trial for murder of a young woman of somewhat prepossessing appearance, who was charged with poisoning her husband. "They were people in a humble cla.s.s of life, and it was suggested that she had committed the act to obtain possession of money from a burial fund, and also that she was on terms of improper intimacy with a young man in the neighborhood. A minute quant.i.ty of a.r.s.enic was discovered in the body of the deceased, which in the defence I accounted for by the suggestion that poison had been used carelessly for the destruction of rats. Mr. Baron Parke charged the jury not unfavorably to the prisoner, dwelling pointedly upon the small quant.i.ty of a.r.s.enic found in the body, and the jury without much hesitation acquitted her. Dr. Taylor, the professor of chemistry and an experienced witness, had proved the presence of a.r.s.enic, and, as I imagine, to the great disappointment of my solicitor, who desired a severe cross-examination, I did not ask him a single question. He was sitting on the bench and near the judge, who, after he had summed up and before the verdict was p.r.o.nounced, remarked to him that he was surprised at the small amount of a.r.s.enic found; upon which Taylor said that if he had been asked the question, he should have proved that it indicated, under the circ.u.mstances detailed in evidence, that a very large quant.i.ty had been taken. The professor had learned never to volunteer evidence, and the counsel for the prosecution had omitted to put the necessary question. Mr. Baron Parke, having learned the circ.u.mstance by accidental means, did not feel warranted in using the information, and I had my first lesson in the art of 'silent cross-examination.'"

CHAPTER VIII

CROSS-EXAMINATION TO CREDIT, AND ITS ABUSES

The preceding chapters have been devoted to the legitimate uses of cross-examination--the development of truth and exposure of fraud.

Cross-examination as to credit has also its legitimate use to accomplish the same end; but this powerful weapon for good has almost equal possibilities for evil. It is proposed in the present chapter to demonstrate that cross-examination as to credit should be exercised with great care and caution, and also to discuss some of the abuses of cross-examination by attorneys, under the guise and plea of cross-examination as to credit.

Questions which throw no light upon the real issues in the case, nor upon the integrity or credit of the witness under examination, but which expose misdeeds, perhaps long since repented of and lived down, are often put for the sole purpose of causing humiliation and disgrace.

Such inquiries into private life, private affairs, or domestic infelicities, perhaps involving innocent persons who have nothing to do with the particular litigation and who have no opportunity for explanation nor means of redress, form no legitimate part of the cross-examiner's art. The lawyer who allows himself to become the mouthpiece of the spite or revenge of his client may inflict untold suffering and unwarranted torture. Such questions may be within the legal rights of counsel in certain instances, but the lawyer who allows himself to be led astray by his zeal or by the solicitations of his client, at his elbow, ready to make any sacrifice to humiliate his adversary, thereby debauches his profession and surrenders his self-respect, for which an occasional verdict, won from an impressionable jury by such methods, is a poor recompense.

To warrant an investigation into matters irrelevant to the main issues in the case, and calculated to disgrace the witness or prejudice him in the eyes of the jury, they must at least be such as tend to impeach his general moral character and his credibility as a witness. There can be no sanction for questions that tend simply to degrade the witness personally, and which can have no possible bearing upon his veracity.

In all that has preceded we have gone upon the presumption that the cross-examiner's art would be used to further his client's cause by all fair and legitimate means, not by misrepresentation, insinuation, or by knowingly putting a witness in a false light before a jury. These methods doubtless succeed at times, but he who practises them acquires the reputation, with astounding rapidity, of being "smart," and finds himself discredited not only with the court, but in some almost unaccountable way, with the very juries before whom he appears. Let him once get the reputation of being "unfair" among the habitues of the court-house, and his usefulness to clients as a trial lawyer is gone forever. Honesty is the best policy quite as much with the advocate as in any of the walks of life.

Counsel may have in his possession material for injuring the witness, but the propriety of using it often becomes a serious question even in cases where its use is otherwise perfectly legitimate. An outrage to the feelings of a witness may be quickly resented by a jury, and sympathy take the place of disgust. Then, too, one has to reckon with the judge, and the indignation of a strong judge is not wisely provoked. Nothing could be more unprofessional than for counsel to ask questions which disgrace not only the witness, but a host of innocent persons, for the mere reason that the client wishes them to be asked.

There could be no better example of the folly of yielding to a client's hatred or desire for revenge than the outcome of the famous case in which Mrs. Edwin Forrest was granted a divorce against her husband, the distinguished tragedian. Mrs. Forrest, a lady of culture and refinement, demanded her divorce upon the ground of adultery, and her husband had made counter-charges against her. At the trial (1851) Charles O'Connor, counsel for Mrs. Forrest, called as his first witness the husband himself, and asked him concerning his infidelities in connection with a certain actress. John Van Buren, who appeared for Edwin Forrest, objected to the question on the ground that it required his client to testify to matters that might incriminate him. The question was not allowed, and the husband left the witness-stand. After calling a few unimportant witnesses, O'Connor rested the case for plaintiff without having elicited any tangible proof against the husband. Had a motion to take the case from the jury been made at this time, it would of necessity have been granted, and the wife's suit would have failed. It is said that when Mr. Van Buren was about to make such a motion and end the case, Mr. Forrest directed him to proceed with the testimony for the defence, and develop the nauseating evidence he had acc.u.mulated against his wife. Van Buren yielded to his client's wishes, and for days and weeks continued to call witness after witness to the disgusting details of Mrs. Forrest's alleged debauchery. The case attracted great public attention and was widely reported by the newspapers. The public, as so often happens, took the opposite view of the evidence from the one the husband had antic.i.p.ated. Its very revolting character aroused universal sympathy on the wife's behalf. Mr. O'Connor soon found himself flooded with offers of evidence, anonymous and otherwise, against the husband, and when Van Buren finally closed his attack upon the wife, O'Connor was enabled, in reb.u.t.tal, to bring such an avalanche of convincing testimony against the defendant that the jury promptly exonerated Mrs. Forrest and granted her the divorce. At the end of the first day's trial the case could have been decided in favor of the husband, had a simple motion to that effect been made; but, yielding to his client's hatred of his wife, and after a hard-fought trial of thirty-three days, Mr. Van Buren found both himself and his client ignominiously defeated. This error of Mr. Van Buren's was widely commented on by the profession at the time. He had but lately resigned his office at Albany as attorney general, and up to the time of this trial had acquired no little prestige in his practice in the city of New York, which, however, he never seemed to regain after his fatal blunder in the Forrest divorce case.[13]

[13] "Extraordinary Cases," H. L. Clinton.

The abuse of cross-examination has been widely discussed in England in recent years, partly in consequence of the cross-examination of a Mrs.

Bravo, whose husband had died by poison. He had lived unhappily with her on account of the attentions of a certain physician. During the inquiry into the circ.u.mstances of her husband's death, the story of the wife's intrigue was made public through her cross-examination. Sir Charles Russell, who was then regarded as standing at the head of the Bar, both in the extent of his business and in his success in court, and Sir Edward Clark, one of her Majesty's law officers, with a high reputation for ability in jury trials, were severely criticised as "forensic bullies," and complained of as "lending the authority of their example to the abuse of cross-examination to credit which was quickly followed by barristers of inferior positions, among whom the practice was spreading of a.s.sailing witnesses with what was not unfairly called a system of innuendoes, suggestions, and bullying from which sensitive persons recoil." And Mr. Charles Gill, one of the many imitators of Russell's domineering style, was criticised as "bettering the instructions of his elders."