What are the benefits or advantages of treating your witnesses/client as hostiles during trial? What does it actually mean?
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A hostile witness is a witness who is giving, or is expected to give, testimony against your case. Any witness called by the opposite side is hostile by default, but sometimes you may call a witness that is not on your “side”.
The benefit of having the witness acknowledged as hostile is the fact that you are allowed to ask leading questions. Normally, leading questions are forbidden as they are worded in such a way as to indicate to the witness the way they should answer. But when the witness is working for the other side, the effects of leading questions are negated.
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