Cross Examination: Questioning Technique - How to Build to a Conclusion.
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- čas přidán 14. 07. 2024
- In this video Sonia discusses an effective technique for undermining the evidence of the witness - 'building to a conclusion'.
There will be 2 demonstrations of cross examination during the video. The
witness is played by an actress - Samantha Hopkins.
At 1 minute 29 seconds Sonia demonstrates why building to a conclusion is important. At 3 minutes and 2 seconds, you will find written steps to building to a conclusion. Sonia demonstrates the technique at 7 minutes 31 seconds.
Please note that every Advocate has their own style of XX, you should develop your own style, grounded in solid technique.
NOTE RE. REFERRING A WITNESS TO ANOTHER WITNESS' EVIDENCE
What follows applies to non-defendant witnesses.
Quite often advocates will want to expose inconsistencies between the accounts of witnesses to demonstrate that their opponent's case is inconsistent or unreliable or that a particular witness is not credible.
However, it is not appropriate for an advocate to quote a witness yet to be called to give evidence, or to quote from a witness who has already given evidence, in the course of cross examining another witness. For example, the following is NOT permissible:
Q. Mrs Ghent, Mr Blake says in his witness statement that you had been drinking alcohol.
A. No, that’s not true at all.
Where witnesses provide inconsistent accounts, it is appropriate to draw the tribunal's attention to the inconsistencies between witnesses. But the correct way to do this is to put the substance of the witness' evidence without attributing the source. The advocate can put the substance of what another witness has said in court, or will say in court, WITHOUT attributing the source of the evidence. For example:
Q. Mrs Ghent, you've told the court that you had been celebrating your birthday at the Red Lion pub?
A. Yes.
Q. You arrived at the pub at 6pm?
A. Yes.
Q. And you left at 11.30pm
A. Yes
Q. So you spent 5 and a half hours in the pub?
A. Yes
Q. So presumably you had been drinking alcohol whilst in the pub?
A. No, I wasn’t drinking at all.
In the above example the substance of what Mr Blake will say has been put to the witness, without quoting directly from him. When Mr Blake gives evidence in court, no doubt he will confirm that Mrs Ghent had been drinking. The cross-examining advocate will have clearly highlighted the inconsistency between the two prosecution witnesses.
When cross examining a defendant, remember that he/she will give evidence after the prosecution has closed its case (if he/she decides to give evidence). The defendant will also have seen and heard each of the prosecution witnesses give their evidence in court. It would be perfectly permissible therefore, when cross examining the defendant, to quote directly from any of the prosecution witnesses and to attribute the source of the quote. See below, for an example:
Q. Miss Hill, you've heard the evidence of Mrs Williams, she told the court that her necklace was found in your handbag.
A. She's lying.
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This has been a God send. Thank you! I'm a litigant in person and just been through the Case Management Conference stage so preparing for what's come. I'll be hiring a Barrister again if I can through public access as my opponent is a Solicitor (ex landlord) so this is a great resource to also prepare for being cross examined. Thank you!
Good luck🤞
Best lesson I've found online today!
Thank you so much for your comment Gabriela.
extremely useful - thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
Great tutorials! Thank you!
Glad you like them!
Absolutely wonderful video and advice, thank you!
I'm so glad you found it useful.
This very useful .thank you very much
You are welcome
Fantastic. Really well done
Many thanks!
It’s criminal you only have 1.8 k subscribers.
This is a great channel!
Thank you.
Superstar as usual.
Awwwwww thank you Andrew. ❤❤❤
OMG so helpful
I'm glad it was helpful.
Helpful 🙂
Glad you think so!
Hi Sonia. Hope you are doing great. I was one of you BPP students at part time Bptc
😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁
if you are sonia madam, accept my best wish. i learned so much from you. Thank you so much. i wish best for you.@@advocacytutor6354
Really good
Thank you! Cheers!
Advocacy Tutor great at explaining cannot recall tutors like this in law school!
@@zabwala786 Thank you so much.
What would you do if the defendant was very verbose and didn’t agree to yes or no answers to anything and also didn’t agree that some things you interpret as uncontroversial were in fact uncontroversial, or repeatedly shoehorned their defence into their answers?
For example -
Advocate: You agree that you had a clear recollection of events at the time of the police interview, don’t you?
Witness: No, not at all - it was a very traumatising time being arrested, and I was very panicked all throughout: I tried to be as accurate as possible, but of course in that state it’s very conceivable that I could have made mistakes or missed important observations.
Or -
Advocate: You’ve been convicted of theft before haven’t you?
Witness: It’s very important to contextualise that: a conviction which happened when I was a teenager, struggling to survive and in dire need of money is simply not comparable to me now as a financially comfortable mid-20s professional who does not not need to steal to survive and therefore does not do so.
Or -
Advocate: You were in the vicinity of the restaurant that night, weren’t you?
Witness: I arrived at 8.30 and have no knowledge of what happened their before that time.
Doesn’t this training just suggest the witnesses will be easy?
Please main aapse baat karna chahta hun
Very great explanation
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Please main aapse baat karna chahta hun
It’s criminal you only have 1.8 k subscribers.
I see what you did there. 👏👏👏. Thank you for your kind comment.