The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25,1892. On Gross-Examination

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 102, 25 February 1892, Page 2

The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1892. On Gross-Examination

*, There has been a considerable amount of discussion lately in some of the English newspapers on the question of the latitude taken by counsel when cross-examining witnesses, and there is a remarkable unanimity among the writers in censuring such latitude. From the acrid tone of some, it is clear enough that they have been either victims cr martyrs themselves on some not very recent occasion. We admit at once that the charges against counsel are true in every respect, but on the other hand we contend that the original cause of the objectionable form of examination, or cross-examination, complained of was not in counsel, but in the witnesses themselves. No person who has had any experience in law courts, can have failed to notice that many witnesses who have good records with the outer world, are only too apt to become active or passive partisans when put in the witness box, and men who in ordinary life .vould scorn to utter a falsehood or be guilty of anything prejudicial to their reputations as good Christians or as men of honor, will prevaricate or lie like Greeks when on their oath. They may not absolutely intend to do this thing, but insensibly, to put a charitable construction on the act, they give and imply such evidence as they believe will help the side they are on, and suppress that which they belieye or think might help the opposing side. Clearly enough then when a barrister employed in a case sees that a witness is following the traditional course, in the interests of his client he is compelled to use all means, cruel though they may be, to get at the truth. In support of this view of the subject we know we are correct in stating that even when clients are laying a case before a solicitor for his opinion or advice, they do not always give full and accurate details, and a double task is put upon the legal man of winnowing the wheat from the chaff. If then, in this instance, where people of the most ordinary intelligence must know, unless they are given to self deceit, that tbey are only prejudicing or endangering their own case by suppressing the truth or exaggerating minor into major facts, it is perfectly reasonable to suppose that when they are giving evidence in open court, whether they are on either side does not matter much, they will not readily speak " the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Therefore counsel

must drag, or force, it out of them, for no other course is open to them if they would do their duty to their clients. Lawyers also know that when clients are casting about for counsel to conduct cases, they almost invariably select one who is noted as a good crossexaminer, one, in fact, who can turn a witness inside out, and having that knowledge lawyers would be less than human, did they not cultivate such a talent to meet the demands of their employers. Who does not know the pleasure given to a litigant in witnessing the misery of his enemy when under the mental tortures inflicted by a skilled but unfeeling operator who knows every nerve of the human mind, and how to touch it so as to make the unfortunate subject writhe in agony? Job said "Oh, that mine enemy would write a book," nowadays men say " Let my enemy get into the witness box." We think that we have proved our case ; that the present mode of treating witnesses in court is not the fault of the lawyers, but of the witnesses themselves.