ABSTRACT
Cross-examination is the examination of your opponent’s witnesses. It is about two main things: ‘putting’ your case and ‘putting down’ your opponent’s case. You need to think about what the witness can do to help your case and what you can do to qualify or discredit their evidence.
It is an essential rule of evidence that you ask the witness questions on every part of your case on which that witness can speak and which is in dispute. If you do not ask the witness a question on any such topics, you may well be treated as having accepted the other side’s version and should not be allowed to contradict it in your closing speech. ‘Putting your case’ is often done by saying to the witness, ‘I put it to you that (for example) you were not wearing a seat belt’. This is not the only way to do it, and some say that it is a clumsy and boring way. As long as you put the question to the witness in some form that he or she can answer, you will have ‘put’ that part of your case. ‘The truth is you weren’t wearing a seat belt’ is quite adequate and may often be more effective. In cross-examination leading questions are perfectly permissible.
To put down your opponent’s case you have to find discrepancies and inconsistencies in the evidence. Advance your case by showing how weak the witness’s evidence is. Do this by showing the limitations in the witness’s testimony, for example, point out what the witness did not see rather than what they did see. Especially when dealing with eye-witnesses, attempt to show how the alleged sighting of the defendant, accident, etc may be mistaken, eg by pointing out the obstructions that were in the witness’s line of vision, how far away the witness was, poor visibility and so on. Examine peripheral issues: although some matters may seem incidental to the case it is often worth probing them if they could show inconsistencies in the testimony. However, you must balance this against the need to keep to time estimates and not go into too much depth on irrelevant aspects.
