{"id":32366,"date":"2009-04-19T13:04:57","date_gmt":"2009-04-19T17:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/trial_techniques_the_art_of_cr_7\/"},"modified":"2024-12-17T16:00:22","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T21:00:22","slug":"trial-techniques-the-art-of-cr-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/trial-techniques-the-art-of-cr-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial Techniques &#8211; The Art of Cross-Examination  &#8211; Part VIII"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rule No. 4 of 12:\tThe successful cross-examiner never asks a question unless he knows what the answer will be or doesn\u2019t care what it is.<\/p>\n<p>Unless counsel is fully prepared, has fully investigated the case and has conducted necessary discovery, this rule is difficult to follow.  On the other hand, if counsel knows everything about the case then there is no reason why this rule cannot be followed and, in fact, it should be followed in all cases.  Otherwise, disaster can strike.<\/p>\n<p>There is an old story that illustrates the rule.  A witness apparently in the 1800&#8217;s witnessed a fight between two men.  It was dark outside and the witness had a poor angle on the fight.  (The defendant was being tried for biting a man\u2019s ear off and the witness admitted that he did not see the defendant bite the man\u2019s ear off.)  Counsel on cross-examination successfully was able to show that the witness could not see the alleged assault and battery for which the defendant was being tried.  Rather than sitting down after establishing this on cross-examination, counsel asked one question too many.  \u201cSo if you didn\u2019t see him bite it off, how do you know he bit the ear off?\u201d  The witness answered: \u201cBecause I saw him spit it out.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/trial-techniques-the-art-of-cr-7\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Trial Techniques &#8211; The Art of Cross-Examination  &#8211; Part VIII\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rule No. 4 of 12: The successful cross-examiner never asks a question unless he knows what the answer will be or doesn\u2019t care what it is. Unless counsel is fully prepared, has fully investigated the case and has conducted necessary discovery, this rule is difficult to follow. On the other hand, if counsel knows everything [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-32366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-injury-wrongful-death","tag-personal-injury"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Trial Techniques - The Art of Cross-Examination - Part VIII &#8212; Trial Attorney Blog &#8212; April 19, 2009<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rule No. 4 of 12: The successful cross-examiner never asks a question unless he knows what the answer will be or doesn\u2019t care what it is. Unless counsel &#8212; April 19, 2009\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/trial-techniques-the-art-of-cr-7\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Trial Techniques - The Art of Cross-Examination - Part VIII &#8212; Trial Attorney Blog &#8212; April 19, 2009\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Rule No. 4 of 12: The successful cross-examiner never asks a question unless he knows what the answer will be or doesn\u2019t care what it is. Unless counsel &#8212; April 19, 2009\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Finch McCranie, LLP\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Trial Techniques - The Art of Cross-Examination - Part VIII &#8212; Trial Attorney Blog &#8212; April 19, 2009","description":"Rule No. 4 of 12: The successful cross-examiner never asks a question unless he knows what the answer will be or doesn\u2019t care what it is. Unless counsel &#8212; April 19, 2009","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/trial-techniques-the-art-of-cr-7\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Trial Techniques - The Art of Cross-Examination - Part VIII &#8212; Trial Attorney Blog &#8212; April 19, 2009","twitter_description":"Rule No. 4 of 12: The successful cross-examiner never asks a question unless he knows what the answer will be or doesn\u2019t care what it is. Unless counsel &#8212; April 19, 2009","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Finch McCranie, LLP","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/trial-techniques-the-art-of-cr-7\/","url":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/trial-techniques-the-art-of-cr-7\/","name":"Trial Techniques - The Art of Cross-Examination - Part VIII &#8212; Trial Attorney Blog &#8212; April 19, 2009","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-04-19T17:04:57+00:00","dateModified":"2024-12-17T21:00:22+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4c607d19a3fdb947c462210c077ff4a4"},"description":"Rule No. 4 of 12: The successful cross-examiner never asks a question unless he knows what the answer will be or doesn\u2019t care what it is. 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