SOME FAMOUS CROSS-EXAMINERS
evitably gets the jury all on the side of the witness. I do not,' he added, 'think that is a good plan.' His own plan was far more wary, intelligent, and circumspect. He had a profound knowledge of human nature, of the springs of human action, of the thoughts of human hearts. To get at these and make them patent to the jury, he would ask only a few telling questions—a very few questions, but generally every one of them was fired point-blank, and hit the mark. His motto was: 'Never cross-examine any more than is absolutely necessary. If you don't break your witness, he breaks you.' He treated every man who appeared like a fair and honest person on the stand, as if upon the presumption that he was a gentleman; and if a man appeared badly, he demolished him, but with the air of a surgeon performing at disagreeable amputation—as if he was profoundly sorry for the necessity. Few men, good or bad, ever cherished any resentment against Choate for his cross-examination of them. His whole style of address to the occupants of the witness-stand was soothing, kind, and reassuring. When he came down heavily to crush a witness, it was with a calm, resolute decision, but no asperity—nothing curt, nothing tart."[1]
Choate's idea of the proper length of an address to a jury was that "a speaker makes his impression, if he ever makes it, in the first hour, sometimes in the first fifteen minutes; for if he has a proper and firm grasp
- ↑ "Reminiscences of Rufus Choate," Parker.
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