RULES OF CROSS-EXAMINATION
- The cross-examination is intuitive like music and painting.
- It is a mental dual between the counsel and the witness.
- The counsel has to adopt a number of tactics to elicit truth from the witness. Perfection can be achieved by training, practice, and experience.
- Never take your eyes from that of the witness, keep up the channel of communication from one mind to another during the course of examination.
- Be mild with the mild, shrewd with the crafty, confiding with the honest, merciful to the young, frail, and fearful: rough to the ruffian and a thunderbolt to the liar.
- An equivocal question shall be avoided.
- Be careful when dealing with a witty or refractory witness; do not lose your temper. Anger is always either the precursor or evidence of assured defeat in every intellectual treat.
- Do not bend your mind upon partial and temporary success; otherwise, defeat is bound to happen in the end.
- Never undervalue your adversary.
- Be respectful to the court, kind to your colleagues, civil to your antagonist, but without any compromise on the principle of your duty.
- Never commence cross-examination without the best preparation relating to your brief, concerning the witness and the point on which he would be called upon to dispose.
- Always attack the witness under cross-examination at the weakest point.
- Do not begin with your bad witness; begin with the best.
- Never attack a witness's character unless you have a record of it.
- Do not make too much of immaterial discrepancies.
- Do not examine a witness in a language that is above the level of the witness.
- Do not cross-examine excessively when the offense is only technical.
- When the offense is proved to the hilt, try to reduce the gravity of the offense by presenting mitigating circumstances in favor of the accused.
- If the witness is enthusiastic or exaggerating, allow them to exaggerate the matter until the exaggeration becomes apparently absurd.
- Do not cross-examine a moderate witness severely.
- Do not press an unwilling or reticent witness too much.
- Do not ask for more information from a witness than is necessary in cross-examination.
