The art of cross-examination; with the cross-examinations of important witnesses in some celebrated cases

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XII THE CROSS-EXAMINATION OF MISS MARTINEZ BY HON. JOSEPH H. CHOATE IN THE CELEBRATED BREACH OF PROMISE CASE, MARTINEZ V. DEL VALLE The modern method of studying any subject, or acquiring any art, is the inductive method. This is illustrated in our law schools, where to a large extent actual cases are studied in order to get at the principles of law instead of acquiring those principles solely through the a priori method of the study of text-books. As already indicated, this method is also the only way to become a master of the art of cross-examination. In addition to actual personal experience, however, it is important to study the methods of great cross-examiners, or those whose extended experience makes them safe guides to follow. Hence, the writer believes, it would be decidedly helpful to the students of the art of cross-examination to have placed before them in a convenient and somewhat condensed form, some good illustrations of the methods of well-known cross-examiners, as exhibited in actual practice, in the cross-examination of important witnesses in famous trials. For these reasons, and the further one that such examples are interesting as a study of human nature, I have in the following pages introduced the cross-examination of some important witnesses in several remarkable trials. Often when it is necessary to demonstrate the fact that a witness has given colored or false testimony, it is not some effective point that is the true test of a great cross-examination, but the general effect which is produced upon a jury by a long review of all the witness has said, bringing out inconsistencies, contradictions, and improbable situations which result finally in the breakdown of the witness's story. The brief extracts from...