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houstonyoureaproblem t1_itvi878 wrote

Reply to comment by thisissuchbsffs in Cross-examination of a coroner by LadeeAlana

I’m an attorney, and I deal with it all the time.

The rules on leading are incredibly relaxed in state court proceedings, likely because many people don’t really understand the rule. But it’s a different story in federal court. I’ve seen judges end direct examination by federal prosecutors when they continued to ask leading questions over objection.

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Ben_Hocking t1_itzr26c wrote

IANAL, but I'm assuming that while you're not allowed to ask leading questions during direct examination, you are allowed to not ask leading questions during cross-examination. If I'm understanding u/thisissuchbsffs correctly, I think that's what she was referring to.

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houstonyoureaproblem t1_itzv4hc wrote

Fair enough. That would be terrible cross examination and likely put you and your client in a bad spot, but I’d say you’re right that a prosecutor wouldn’t want to interrupt if a defense attorney was screwing things up that badly.

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Ben_Hocking t1_itzzh05 wrote

I'm not sure how non-leading yes/no questions would screw things up, assuming you knew the answer to the yes/no question ahead of time. (And if you don't, then the leading question might actually be worse, in my non-lawyer opinion.) To use your example, I don't see a significant difference (under cross-examination) between the two questions:

>So not “Did you check the victim’s pulse?” but “You didn’t check the victim’s pulse, did you?”

Again, I recognize that you know more than I do and have vastly more experience in the court than I do*, so I admit ahead of time that I might be missing something.

*My experience is limited to unsuccessfully fighting a traffic ticket when I was a young adult and serving on two juries.

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houstonyoureaproblem t1_iu076hy wrote

Typically speaking, cross examination is an effort to develop testimony that supports your theory of the case or makes specific points you believe are important.

The idea is to ask specific questions that you know the witness will have to answer a particular way. Leading questions allow you to guide the witness where you want to go. Direct questions are open-ended and often allow the witness to explain things in greater detail.

It's all strategy, but I can assure you asking direct questions on cross-examination isn't a good approach. But you're absolutely right--Rule #1 is to be sure not to ask questions if you don't already know how the witness will answer.

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