THE ART OF CROSS-EXAMINATION
them by degrees into exaggerations that will conflict with the common sense of the jury. Under no circumstances put a false construction on the words of a witness; there are few faults in an advocate more fatal with a jury.
If, perchance, you obtain a really favorable answer, leave it and pass quietly to some other inquiry. The inexperienced examiner in all probability will repeat the question with the idea of impressing the admission upon his hearers, instead of reserving it for the summing up, and will attribute it to bad luck that his witness corrects his answer or modifies it in some way, so that the point is lost. He is indeed a poor judge of human nature who supposes that if he exults over his success during the cross-examination, he will not quickly put the witness on his guard to avoid all future favorable disclosures.
David Graham, a prudent and successful cross-examiner, once said, perhaps more in jest than anything else, "A lawyer should never ask a witness on cross-examination a question unless in the first place he knew what the answer would be, or in the second place he didn't care." This is something on the principle of the lawyer who claimed that the result of most trials depended upon which side perpeutated the greatest blunders in cross-examination. Certainly no lawyer should ask a critical question unless he is sure of the answer.
Mr. Sergeant Ballantine, in his "Experiences," quotes an instance in the trial of a prisoner on the charge of
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