CROSS-EXAMINATION TO CREDIT
are addressed in the first instance, can have but an imperfect knowledge of either side of the case before him. He cannot always be sure, without hearing all the facts, whether the questions asked would or would not tend to develop the truth rather than simply degrade the witness. Then, again, the mischief is often done by the mere asking of the question, even if the judge directs the witness not to answer. The insinuation has been made publicly—the dirt has been thrown. The discretion must therefore after all be largely left to the lawyer himself. He is bound in honor, and out of respect to his profession, to consider whether the question ought in conscience to be asked—whether in his own honest judgment it renders the witness unworthy of belief under oath—before he allows himself to ask it. It is much safer, for example, to proceed upon the principle that the relations between the sexes has no bearing whatever upon the probability of the witness telling the truth, unless in the extreme case of an abandoned woman.
In criminal prosecutions the district attorney is usually regarded by the jury much in the light of a judicial officer and, as such, unprejudiced and impartial. Any slur or suggestion adverse to a prisoner's witness coming from this source, therefore, has an added power for evil, and is calculated to do injustice to the defendant. There have been many flagrant abuses of this character in the criminal courts of our own city. "Is it not a fact that you were not there at all?" "Has all
129
