Why is cross-examination so difficult to master?
The difficulty lies in the state of the art. How cross-examination is taught and what is being taught, is not particularly good. Cross-examination, as I see it, has gone through three major stages. If you read the cross-examinations by the greats of past years, their style and method was all wrong—they were using questions; asking open ended questions of witnesses. Somewhere around 1970, either NITA or the National Criminal Defense College, perhaps a combination of both, changed us and we went to a second style: the traditional leading question— “You went to the store, isn’t that correct?” The current problem is that lawyers are still using one or a combination of these two methods. There is a new, third method. The use of simple statements: “You went to the store.” This is much more efficient, and particularly helpful in telling your story. Back to top In your book, you mention that Perry Mason is a wonderful actor, but a terrible cross-examiner. What do you mean by that? The way he c
