ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a number of questions about the rhetorical strategies employed by lawyers in developing their case. It describes discourse strategies used at different stages in court proceedings: making an opening statement; presenting an account of the facts in issue by taking witnesses through examination-in-chief; cross-examining witnesses whose evidence appears to conflict with the account presented; and delivering a closing argument. Advocates aim to lead witnesses through a process of telling a story during examination in-chief, by carefully constructing suitable questions. Such techniques arguably apply psychological insights gained as much through professional experience as from study or research. The chapter presents the opening speeches made by the two sides in a single trial, taken from the transcript of a widely reported American case. The speeches show how the prosecution and defence opened their respective arguments in the 1997 trial of Timothy McVeigh, following the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing in 1995 that killed 168 people.
