Cross-Examination: Don't Ask One Question Too Many (Podcast)

Dan Small: The ninth commandment of cross-examination, according to the late, great Irving Younger, is don't ask one question too many. That's a pretty common problem, unfortunately. A lawyer gets up to cross-examine – their big moment – building a series of facts that they believe is helpful. Then they ask one last question intended to be the triumphant capstone of this line of inquiry. Although this often works on TV, surprise-surprise, this is not TV. In real life, questions like that usually just don't work.

Let's suppose a criminal case involves an attack at night, and the issue is whether the victim can identify the attacker. You're the defense attorney, and you ask a series of really good, basic building block questions.