What is cross-examination and when is it applied in court?
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In a court case, when one side presents a witness to help make their case, the other side’s lawyers also get to ask that witness questions, too. So it’s applied or can be applied to any witness who testifies during a trial.
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.
So the structure of a trial goes something like this (I’m ignoring all the pre-trial stuff, starting with “all rise”).
* Attorneys give their opening statements.
* Prosecution calls their witnesses for testimony.
* Defense calls their witnesses for testimony.
* Attorneys give their closing statements.
Note the division in the middle – each side of the trial will have their own witnesses, based on whose side of the case their testimony will help.
Each witness is called individually, and is then asked question by the side who called them (so if they’re a witness for the prosecution, the prosecutor will question them) – this is called **direct examination** and is often skimmed over in courtroom drama shows since it is just a restatement of what we’ve seen at the start anyway.
After their own side has finished with questions, they will tell the judge “No further questions”, and then the opposing counsel will be given the opportunity to ask their own questions. This is the **cross examination** and the main difference is that this exchange is more adversarial – it is opposing counsel’s job to point out holes in their story, make them flustered, ask for tough explanations, and convince either the judge or the jury that their testimony should not be considered as strongly.
One of the major differences between the two is that when you are conducting cross examination, you are permitted to ask *leading questions* – these are questions that poke the answerer towards a desired answer. An example that shows this: A neutral question that might be asked on direct examination would be “Please tell us what happened on October 5th of last year”, whereas a leading question about the same fact would be along the lines of “On October 5th of last year, you witnessed Mr. Smith leaving his house with a gun, is this correct?” (This is distinct from a *loaded question* which has the fun example of “Mister Smith, when did you stop beating your wife?” – the question presupposes the facts both that Mr. Smith has a wife, and that Mr. Smith has at some point beaten his wife. Most answers you might give to that would imply those things, unless you’re exceptionally verbose in a response.)
TL;DR: cross examination is what you are probably most familiar with in courtroom dramas, as it’s a witness from one side being questioned by the attorney of the opposing side.
So the structure of a trial goes something like this (I’m ignoring all the pre-trial stuff, starting with “all rise”).
* Attorneys give their opening statements.
* Prosecution calls their witnesses for testimony.
* Defense calls their witnesses for testimony.
* Attorneys give their closing statements.
Note the division in the middle – each side of the trial will have their own witnesses, based on whose side of the case their testimony will help.
Each witness is called individually, and is then asked question by the side who called them (so if they’re a witness for the prosecution, the prosecutor will question them) – this is called **direct examination** and is often skimmed over in courtroom drama shows since it is just a restatement of what we’ve seen at the start anyway.
After their own side has finished with questions, they will tell the judge “No further questions”, and then the opposing counsel will be given the opportunity to ask their own questions. This is the **cross examination** and the main difference is that this exchange is more adversarial – it is opposing counsel’s job to point out holes in their story, make them flustered, ask for tough explanations, and convince either the judge or the jury that their testimony should not be considered as strongly.
One of the major differences between the two is that when you are conducting cross examination, you are permitted to ask *leading questions* – these are questions that poke the answerer towards a desired answer. An example that shows this: A neutral question that might be asked on direct examination would be “Please tell us what happened on October 5th of last year”, whereas a leading question about the same fact would be along the lines of “On October 5th of last year, you witnessed Mr. Smith leaving his house with a gun, is this correct?” (This is distinct from a *loaded question* which has the fun example of “Mister Smith, when did you stop beating your wife?” – the question presupposes the facts both that Mr. Smith has a wife, and that Mr. Smith has at some point beaten his wife. Most answers you might give to that would imply those things, unless you’re exceptionally verbose in a response.)
TL;DR: cross examination is what you are probably most familiar with in courtroom dramas, as it’s a witness from one side being questioned by the attorney of the opposing side.
So the structure of a trial goes something like this (I’m ignoring all the pre-trial stuff, starting with “all rise”).
* Attorneys give their opening statements.
* Prosecution calls their witnesses for testimony.
* Defense calls their witnesses for testimony.
* Attorneys give their closing statements.
Note the division in the middle – each side of the trial will have their own witnesses, based on whose side of the case their testimony will help.
Each witness is called individually, and is then asked question by the side who called them (so if they’re a witness for the prosecution, the prosecutor will question them) – this is called **direct examination** and is often skimmed over in courtroom drama shows since it is just a restatement of what we’ve seen at the start anyway.
After their own side has finished with questions, they will tell the judge “No further questions”, and then the opposing counsel will be given the opportunity to ask their own questions. This is the **cross examination** and the main difference is that this exchange is more adversarial – it is opposing counsel’s job to point out holes in their story, make them flustered, ask for tough explanations, and convince either the judge or the jury that their testimony should not be considered as strongly.
One of the major differences between the two is that when you are conducting cross examination, you are permitted to ask *leading questions* – these are questions that poke the answerer towards a desired answer. An example that shows this: A neutral question that might be asked on direct examination would be “Please tell us what happened on October 5th of last year”, whereas a leading question about the same fact would be along the lines of “On October 5th of last year, you witnessed Mr. Smith leaving his house with a gun, is this correct?” (This is distinct from a *loaded question* which has the fun example of “Mister Smith, when did you stop beating your wife?” – the question presupposes the facts both that Mr. Smith has a wife, and that Mr. Smith has at some point beaten his wife. Most answers you might give to that would imply those things, unless you’re exceptionally verbose in a response.)
TL;DR: cross examination is what you are probably most familiar with in courtroom dramas, as it’s a witness from one side being questioned by the attorney of the opposing side.
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