What is cross-examination and when is it applied in court?
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Let’s say Alice is a prosecution lawyer for a murder trial and she calls Bob as a witness. This is the direct examination, so she asks Bob all sorts of questions about what he experienced. Maybe he saw the defendant sharpening their knife collection, or heard the defendant talking about how much they like killing people, or saw the defendant drop a bloody trash bag in a dumpster. Now Alice already knows this—she’s already interviewed Bob and determined that his testimony would help her case—and this is just repeating it all for the sake of the jury.
When Alice is done, then it’s Charlie the defense attorney’s turn to question Bob. This is the cross-examination. His goal is to try and poke holes in Bob’s testimony, with the goal of showing that what Bob just said doesn’t prove the defendant’s guilt. This could be done by showing that Bob’s view is biased, or that his memory’s unreliable, or that he was leaping to conclusions at what he saw. This could be questions like “Isn’t the defendant a chef, though?” or “Are you sure you didn’t mishear the defendant?” or “Did you check to see whether that was blood or did you just assume it?” They can also try and elicit some new information that would accomplish this goal as well, like “Did you ever hold any grudges against the defendant?”
Now, there are limits as to what lawyers can ask during the cross-examination. They’re generally restricted to asking about topics that were first raised during the direct examination or are otherwise pertinent to the case. They can’t be argumentative with the witness, make baseless speculation, or ask leading questions, either. If they do, the opposing counsel can object (this is where the trope of “OBJECTION!” scenes in court dramas comes from), and the question is stricken from the record.
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