THE SEQUENCE OF CROSS-EXAMINATION
you tell your counsel about it?" "Were you intending to deceive him?" "What was your object in trying to mislead the jury?"[1]
"Some men," said a London barrister who often saw Sir Charles Russell in action, "get in a bit of the nail, and there they leave it hanging loosely about until the judge or some one else pulls it out. But when Russell got in a bit of the nail, he never stopped until he drove it home. No man ever pulled that nail out again."
Sometimes it is advisable to deal the witness a stinging blow with your first few questions; this, of course, assumes that you have the material with which to do it. The advantage of putting your best point forward at the very start is twofold. First, the jury have been listening to his direct testimony and have been forming their own impressions of him, and when you rise to cross-examine, they are keen for your first questions. If you "land one" in the first bout, it makes far more impression on the jury than if it came later on when their attention has begun to lag, and when it might only appear as a chance shot. The second, and perhaps more important, effect of scoring on the witness with the first group of questions is that it makes him afraid of you and less hostile in his subsequent answers, not knowing when you will trip him again and give him another fall. This will often
- ↑ In Chapter XI (infra) is given in detail the cross-examination of the witness Pigott by Sir Charles Russell, which affords a most striking example of the most effective use that can be made of an incriminating letter.
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