Yell, Compel, or Soft-Sell: How Blatant Must Cross-Examination Be?
Among Irving Younger’s commandments were the well-known dictates of “be brief” and “save the ultimate point of your cross for summation.” The latter was the model for an eyewitness cross-examination at a recent training on litigating mistaken identification cases, but when we polled the mock jury one of its members – discussing the cross – said “I had no idea what the lawyer was doing or what his purpose was.” It was only one juror, and others ‘got it,’ but the experience gave me pause. The question was, and remains – is it better to make your points and leave the rest for closing; or must we re-examine Younger’s proscription and ‘push’ the point more explicitly? Let me first present the cross as delivered and then the analysis. The cross was designed to make three essential points: that the witness had barely any time to view the perpetrator (and was looking at the gun rather than the robber’s face); that police ‘bad practices’ created the false memory; and that the accused did not fit the …