Be Prepared. Do Not Ask a Question to Which You Do Not Know the Answer.THE 4TH COMMANDMENTIrving Younger promulgated the 10 Commandments of cross-examination, and those commandments have guided cross-examiners for decades. But, do they make sense? Should they be Commandments or merely Guidelines? Let’s examine the 4th Commandment: Be prepared. Do not ask a [...]
Bailey Brothers Illustrate the Contradiction Technique SHOW THE STORY: The Power of Visual Advocacy, Trial Guides (2011) by William and Robert Bailey offers a superb example of the cross-examination contradiction technique. The essence of the technique is to lock the witness into testimony that can be proven false.SHOW THE STORY explains how trial lawyers can [...]
Principles of War Guide a Winning Cross-Examination Starting sometime in the seventies it became fashionable for businessmen to read The Art of War by Sun Tzu and A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. Executives allegedly found the ancient Oriental precepts of waging war applicable to the dog-eat-dog business world. It may be chic [...]
Cross-Examined In Open Court - Where Tyrants Fear To TreadThe most accurate indicator of the power of any method to uncover the truth is the fear it produces in the unscrupulous. Though it has been over 65 years since Adolf Hitler took his own life in a Berlin bunker, he remains the most monstrous, evil [...]
The Judge Takes Over – Part 2 of Cross-Examination in the Evolution and Creationism Trials This is the second discussion of the Dover trial in which the parents of children in the Dover, Pennsylvania school district sued to prevent the school board from introducing creationism into the curriculum under the guise of intelligent design. For [...]
The Scopes and Dover TrialsCross-examination Handbook delves into the Scopes trial, focusing on Clarence Darrow’s examination of adverse witness William Jennings Bryan utilizing the reduction-to-the-absurd technique to defeat him. And, some say that the ordeal contributed to Bryan’s death five days after the trial.While the 1925 Scopes trial involved the prosecution of a football coach [...]
To: Trial Advocacy and Clinical Law Professors From: William S. Bailey, Adjunct Professor of Law, Seattle University Prior to writing Cross-Examination Handbook, my co-authors Ron Clark, Bob Dekle and I thought through the implications of what we were about to begin. The fundamental question which loomed in our minds was, “Does this book really make [...]
Cross-Examination Techniques DemonstratedPresumed Innocent, Scott Turow’s masterpiece thriller and courtroom drama, superbly illustrates how to conduct a winning cross-examination of an expert. The expert is forensic pathologist Doctor Tatsuo Kumagai, known to his friends as “Ted” and to others as “Painless.” Doctor Kumagai is called to testify in the murder trial of chief assistant prosecutor [...]
Aspen has just published Cross-Examination Handbook: Persuasion, Strategies and Techniques (416 pages) by Ronald Clark, George (Bob) Dekle and William S. Bailey. The Cross-Examination Handbook shows how to take control in cross-examination. All the essential skills and strategies you need are covered. And, the Handbook provides step-by-step instruction combined with outstanding examples from illustrious cases [...]
