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Cross-examination   /krɔs-ɪgzˌæmənˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Cross-examination

noun
1.
(law) close questioning of a hostile witness in a court of law to discredit or throw a new light on the testimony already provided in direct examination.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Cross-examination" Quotes from Famous Books



... justice for any injury he may have sustained. It appears to me, however, that a considerable portion of this difficulty might he removed by admitting a certain number of slaves—say three—to constitute one witness. Cross-examination would easily detect either combination or falsehood, and a severe punishment attached to such an offence would act as a powerful antidote to its commission. Until some system is arranged for receiving negro evidence in some shape, he ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... the case took place too recently for me to recapitulate its details—the really incomprehensible partiality which the presiding judge showed in his cross-examination of Gilbert. The thing was noticed and severely criticised at the time. ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc

... that Armstrong was guilty, and one of them declared that he had seen the fatal blow struck. It was late at night, he said, and the light of the full moon had made it possible for him to see the crime committed. Lincoln, on cross-examination, asked him only questions enough to make the jury see that it was the full moon that made it possible for the witness to see what occurred; got him to say two or three times that he was sure of it, and seemed to give up any further effort ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... Mr. Bramwell Booth referred when, after examination, cross-examination, [307] and re-examination, during which no suggestion had been made that he had ever made the untrue statement now alleged against him, he asked and received leave from the Judge to make the following explanation, which I quote from the ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... husband with concealing something from her ever since the previous day, but the good man was obstinate and merely said that he felt unaccountably nervous and irritable, and begged her to excuse his mood. Mrs. Ambrose postponed her cross-examination until a more favourable opportunity should ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... it. He accepted the situation so carelessly and gave his assent so easily that she was a little hurt. But the next day, he quizzed her about the church and its doctrines. Like a good lawyer, he slipped in the crucial question of his cross-examination ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... The cross-examination of the different witnesses was still conducted by Mr. Grant; several of the witnesses were made to contradict each other, and partially to contradict themselves; but as it was only on points of minor importance, no material change could be effected ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... Jacksonville with his witnesses to prove the marriage. I tried to engage Douglas as my counsel, but he was deep in campaigning. Accordingly I turned again to Mr. Brooks. There was nothing left of defense to us but the cross-examination of these unknown persons who came to swear that they were witnesses to the wedding. That Zoe and Fortescue had lived together as husband and wife there was little doubt. Had I not seen them together on the lake front in Chicago? Had not Zoe then hidden herself ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... will thus be equivalent to all virtue—a position which elsewhere Socrates is not unwilling to admit, but which will not assist us in distinguishing the nature of courage. In this part of the Dialogue the contrast between the mode of cross-examination which is practised by Laches and by Socrates, and also the manner in which the definition of Laches is made to approximate to that of Nicias, are ...
— Laches • Plato

... Corridon. The former—eager as a beagle on the scent to run down the prey before him—left the table amidst murmurs of derision and indignation evoked by his over-eagerness on his direct examination, and his "fencing" and evasion on cross-examination. The spy Corridon was produced "to prove the existence of the Fenian conspiracy." Little notice was taken of him. Mr. Crean asked him barely a trivial question or two. Mr. Martin and Mr. Sullivan, when asked if they desired to cross-examine him, replied ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan

... witnesses. Those who first discovered the outrage were called and testified to what they saw. John Smith was next called, and gave in as evidence what has before been stated; at the close of a strict cross-examination he returned to his seat. His son Levi was next called, and stated that his father was out the night he himself stated he was; he went out about half-past six or seven; did not say where he was going, or how long he should be out; he came ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... ease with which Mr. Webster unravelled a complicated set of facts, demonstrated that the accuser was in reality the guilty party, and carried irresistible conviction to the minds of the jurors. It was connected with a remarkable exhibition of his power of cross-examination, which was not only acute and penetrating, but extremely terrifying to a recalcitrant witness. The argument in the White case, as a specimen of eloquence, stands on far higher ground than either of the other two, and, apart from the nature of the subject, ranks with the very best of ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... If I could make you look like that, by going to Europe and putting it over those foreign boys, I'd feel I'd earned a year's salary right there, and quit. Not to speak of the cross-examination you're putting ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... but said that that statement was correct. She could not see, during the next few minutes' cross-examination, what these questions had to do with that little cottage in Mullen Lane, and whether her family was to be turned ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long

... economic system. According to Ricardo rent is paid to men who don't labour at all. The fundholder was a weight upon all industry, and as dead a weight as the landlord. The capitalist, Ricardo's social mainspring, required at least cross-examination. He represents 'accumulated labour' in some fashion, but it is not plain that the slice which he takes out of the whole cake is proportioned accurately to his personal labour. The right and the fact which coincided in the deer and beaver period ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... be able to indemnify my conduct, if called in question." One witness also testified that he "was angry that Admiral Lestock's division did not bear down,"—which was just enough,—and that "he thought it most advisable to keep his station;" meaning by this, apparently, to remain where he was. His cross-examination of the evidence was directed to prove the danger to his ship from these remaining Spaniards. This anxiety was wholly misplaced, and professionally unworthy. Quite independent of orders by signal and message, he was bound, in view of the condition of the Marlborough, ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... journey Rosamond talked incessantly of Jessie Bain, plying the girl beside her with every conceivable question concerning her, until at last Margaret grew quite restless under the ceaseless cross-examination. All unconsciously, her manner grew haughty, ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey

... emerged from the inn after an hour's conversation over a bottle of burnt sherry—conversation which, upon the father's side, had borne, in truth, much the character of cross-examination—to mount the phaeton with which a pair of high-mettled bays were impatiently waiting the return homewards, there was a very definite look of mutual dissatisfaction to be read ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... voices were quarrelsome, and once he heard a chair or some article of furniture overthrown. Was awakened about two by footsteps on the stairs, followed by the sound of oars in the lower hall. He told his story plainly and simply. Under cross-examination admitted that he was fond of detective stories and had tried to write one himself; that he had said at the store that he would like to see that "conceited ass" swing, referring to the prisoner; that he had sent flowers to Jennie ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... hundred ways by which she might have appealed to Hartley, and yet her common sense told her that the less she said on the subject the better it would be, if, in the end, the Rev. Francis Heath was led into the awful pitfalls of cross-examination. Anyone may forget and recall facts later, but to state facts that may be used as evidence is to stand handcuffed before inexorable justice, and Mrs. Wilder had left her ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie

... into Carlisle at the head of his troops, with a white cockade in his cap; his presence at the battle of Falkirk, in a field with Lords Kilmarnock and Pitsligo, who were at the head of a corps of reserve. Six witnesses were examined, but there was no cross-examination, except such as Balmerino himself attempted. The witnesses were chiefly men who had served in the same cause for which the brave Balmerino was soon to suffer. After they had delivered their testimony, the "old hero," as he was well styled, shook ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... thought, that the King had caused it to be written, or had written it himself, that he supposed his brother to have read it, and desired to regain possession of it as soon as possible. Philip seemed to hesitate whether to continue his cross-examination or not, and he looked at the door leading into the antechamber, suddenly wondering why Mendoza had not returned. Then he began to speak again, but he did not wish, angry though he was, to face alone a second refusal to deliver the document to him. His dignity ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford

... held under Chief Justice Pengammon various odd interesting facts were revealed. Mr. Lowes-Parlby, the brilliant young K.C., distinguished himself by his searching cross-examination of many witnesses. At one point a certain Mrs. Dawes was ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various

... Aunt Jane. 'I saw what the wretch was driving at all the time of the cross-examination; and if I'd been the judge, would not I ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a severe cross-examination, which had the effect of deepening Mr. Walters's impression, that some plot was being concocted that would result to the detriment of the coloured people; for he was confident that no good could be indicated by the mysterious conduct of ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... Wright proceeded to put the young recruit through a severe, grilling cross-examination. But Hal kept his head through it all, insisting that he ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock

... before she could be further questioned. She hoped that she had said enough to exonerate Tunis. If she said more, it might be to raise some doubt in the minds of Cap'n Ira and Prudence as to Tunis' ignorance of her true reputation. She must escape any cross-examination—on that or ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... testimony. He heard the witnesses examined by the court, and cross-examined by his own counsel; and it is evident from the narrative of the presiding judge, that he showed no small skill and policy in the searching cross-examination which he then applied. The fears, the feelings, the consciences, of those who had betrayed him, all were in turn appealed to; but the facts were quite overpowering, and it was too late to aid his comrades or himself. Then turning to the court, he skilfully availed himself of the point ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... battle, much better than in a cross-examination, Sir Reginald," Bluewater observed, in a tone so low, that none heard him but the person to whom the words were addressed. "I think we shall sooner get at Sir Wycherly's wishes, by allowing him ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... Colonel Le Noir, evidently thought that in this rash, reckless, spirited witness he had a fine subject for sarcastic cross-examination! But he reckoned "without his host." He did not know Cap! He, too, "caught a Tartar." And before the cross-examination was concluded, Capitola's apt and cutting replies had overwhelmed him with ridicule and confusion, ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... rigid cross-examination, but his testimony was not shaken in the least. Perhaps not one present but was impressed ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... Madam," said the lawyer, beginning to wince under the cross-examination. "Lucy's gone, you say; didn't she leave things all right,—your ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... In cross-examination the aim of the counsel for the defence was to show that the evidence of the witness was unreliable because he was actuated by personal ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... Jane, who, as she thought, disliked her, and wished to turn her into ridicule; so it was with no satisfaction that she found herself separated from the others in the course of a walk, and submitted to a cross-examination. ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... unwilling to explain matters of his own accord. I had to put the conversation into the form of a cross-examination. ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... retort lay in the word "stout." But Iris was not accustomed to cross-examination. During a three months' residence on the island she had learnt how to avoid Lady Tozer. Here it was impossible, and the older woman fastened upon her asp-like. Miss Iris Deane was a toothsome morsel for gossip. Not yet twenty-one, the only daughter of a wealthy baronet who owned a ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... as verdant a specimen of humanity as one would wish to meet with. After a severe cross-examination, the counsel for the Government paused, and then putting on a look of severity, and an ominous shake ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... suspicions; so poor Mrs. Tuis had to take her turn at facing the ordeal, and I had to drill and coach her for it. I had a vision of the poor lady going in to her niece, and suddenly collapsing. Then there would begin a cross-examination, and Sylvia would worm out the truth, and we might have a case of puerperal fever on our ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... questions concerning his occupation of the afternoon and was ready with some defiant queries of his own. But no occasion arose for either defiance or cross-examination. Seth never hinted at a suspicion nor mentioned the young lady at the bungalow. Brown therefore remained silent concerning what he had seen from the attic window. He would hold that in reserve, and if Atkins ever did accuse him of bad ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... to me: and in all honesty he swore to the car. For this, since Ping and Pong were duplicates, he may be forgiven. He described the morning's incident with a wealth of picturesque detail and an abundance of vivid imagery, while an astute cross-examination only served to adorn the sincerity ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... presents in their hands, terrified of what might happen, yet, according to Sakamata, their fears had been dispelled immediately; for the wise new god had received them as brothers and had made offerings to them as was the custom for strangers to do. It was true, he admitted in cross-examination, that whole villages had been put to the sword and burned; but, he demanded, was not that the way of a mighty warrior to those who ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... treat the evidence critically, and as far as possible satisfy themselves, by putting questions which arose out of the evidence, that the witnesses were speaking the truth. They were, in fact, to cross-examine them, so far as the testimony given provided materials for cross-examination. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... porters who saw him leave Euston by the 7.15 train for Liverpool, and arrive just too late for the 5.15; there was the cabman (2138), who drove him to Euston just in time, he (witness) thought, to catch the 5.15 A.M. Under cross-examination, the cabman got a little confused; he was asked whether, if he really picked up the prisoner at Bow Railway Station at about 4.30, he ought not to have caught the first train at Euston. He said the fog made him drive rather slowly, but admitted the mist was transparent ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... answered the question. He did not recognise the right of this man to put him through a cross-examination. Indeed, it seemed to him, the less he said the better. Perhaps Zary saw something of what was going on in his mind, for his big black eyes smiled, though the dejected ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White

... such woman breathes the air of Christendom. Whenever one comes to confidential terms with an unmarried woman, of course, she favours one with a long chronicle of the men she has refused to marry, greatly to their grief. But unsentimental cross-examination, at least in my experience, always develops the fact that every one of these suffered from some obvious and intolerable disqualification. Either he had a wife already and was vague about his ability to get rid of her, or he was drunk when he was brought to his proposal ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... you,' returned Geraldine, with one of her keen glances; and then she somewhat elaborately changed the subject. Audrey was not subjected to any cross-examination; indeed, there was something significant in Mrs. Harcourt's entire dearth of curiosity; but all the time she was saying to herself: 'Audrey has been crying; her eyes are quite swollen, and yet she looks cheerful. What can it mean? What has ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... and the cross-examination was interrupted. But in a few minutes she had settled down ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle

... confessed to me as he sat staring into the cheery blaze on my hearth. Under my friendly but somewhat judicial cross-examination that ensued, it was evident that not a word had escaped Alice's lips that any one but that big optimistic child of a Tanrade could have construed as her promise to be his wife. He confided her words to me ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith

... Further examination, and cross-examination, elicit other facts about the captured caravan—in short, everything, except the secret alliance between the Mexican officer and the Tenawa chief. Not thinking of this—in truth, having no suspicion of it—his examiners ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... education, such as a portfolio, or a dictionary, and sell the same, as I have explained, in order to eke out his pocket money, probably to buy either music or tobacco. These frauds were sometimes, as Ernest thought, in imminent danger of being discovered, and it was a load off his breast when the cross-examination was safely over. This time Theobald had made a great fuss about the extras, but had grudgingly passed them; it was another matter, however, with the character and the moral statistics, with which the ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... at the expense of much cross-examination, Mr. Bindloose extracted from his client a detailed account of the proceedings of the company at the Well towards Tyrrel, so far as they were known to, or suspected by Meg, making notes, as the examination proceeded, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... reply to my question as to the length of the animal, 'Well, sir, I should not like to exaggerate, but I should say it was forty-five feet long from snout to tail!' Another witness declared it to be at least twenty feet; but by rigid cross-examination I came to the conclusion that it did not ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... had left only a temporary protection while they repaired the viaduct on the bridge, were severely censured. The makers of the car were subjected to a very searching cross-examination. The brakes and the uncertain light were blamed. Henri, who from the hillside a mile or more back had watched with ghastly face, was the only one who understood the ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... to repeat the question, hardly sure of the possibility. These girls did not look much like it. There was no half-suspicious, half-aggressive expression on their faces even yet. It was time for it; time for her own cross-examination to begin, according to all precedent, if they were really looking out for themselves. Why didn't they sit up straight and firm, with their hands in their muffs and their eyes on hers, and say with a rising inflection and lips that moved as little as possible,—"What wages, mum?" or "What's ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... descriptions by Mr. Basil Thomson, and other living witnesses, the present writer is unable to imagine. The better, the more closely contemporary the evidence, the more a witness of the abnormal is ready to submit to cross-examination, the more his testimony is apt to be neglected by Folklorists. Of course, the writer is not maintaining that there is anything 'psychical' in fire-walking, or in fire-handling. Put it down as a trick. Then as a trick it is so old, so world-wide, ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... up your sleeve, Cummings," I countered. "This is no witness-stand cross-examination. ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... the very outset of the cross-examination, clarified the air as to the nature of the defense he was going to put up for his client. After a few ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon

... learned Solicitor," he exclaimed, "has no right to make such a statement; the crown cannot give such matters in evidence." For the third time the ruling was in favour of the Liberator. Then came the all-important cross-examination of the approvers; and the men who had lied so well and so boldly on Saturday, prevaricated, cursed, and howled under the searching questions of their new examiner; Nowlan, the vilest of the lot, exclaiming at last: "It's little I thought I'd have to meet you, Counsellor O'Connell." ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... to a dance, Vernon betook himself to his club and Mr. Halstead, forgetting his expressed intention of a talk with her, shut himself in his study. When she found herself alone with her hostess, Willa mentally braced her nerves for a cross-examination, but the ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... a number of friends," the duke remarked to Palford and Grimby, in his impartial tone. "I am hoping you are not thinking of cross-examining me. I have always been convinced that under cross-examination I could be induced to innocently give evidence condemnatory to both sides of any case whatever. But would you mind telling me what the exact evidence is so ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... matters. I have followed the practice in my own sections of freshmen of requiring them to put at the head of their brief and of their argument the audience which they had in mind. Then when one comes to criticism and conference one can by a little cross-examination bring home to them the very practical nature ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... having been captured by the English, despite her prophecies and her miracles, maintained first of all in her cross-examination that St. Catherine and St. Marguerite had honoured her with many revelations. I am astonished that she never said anything of her talks with the prince of the celestial militia. These two saints apparently liked talking better than St. Michael. ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... Cytherea told her of the incident, not without a fear that she would burst into one of her ungovernable fits of temper at learning Cytherea's slight departure from the programme. But, strangely to Cytherea, Miss Aldclyffe looked delighted. The usual cross-examination followed. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... gaping, not far away. He touched his horse with a heel. Saracen sprang towards them, and they fell back alarmed. Belward now drank his beer quietly, and asked question after question of the landlord, sometimes waiting for an answer, sometimes not—a kind of cross-examination. Presently ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... politics, and other fields; but such works are usually the products of enthusiasts in single subjects, who are apt to forget how much a man of acute mind and keen observation can pick up of a technical matter that interests him for the time, and how intelligently he can use it. The cross-examination of an expert witness by an able lawyer is an everyday illustration; and in the literature of our own day this kind of versatility is strikingly exemplified in the work of such a ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson

... which represented the late dinner of the household he was wary and self-possessed. Mrs. Thornburgh got out of him that he had been for a walk, and had seen Catherine, but for all her ingenuities of cross-examination she got nothing more. Afterwards, when he and the vicar were smoking together, he proposed to Mr. Thornburgh that they two should go off for a couple of days on ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... recognising Miss Caroline's now familiar methods of cross-examination, came to the rescue and diverted the conversation into a less personal channel, and shortly afterwards the Tempests left in order to pay some parochial visits in the village, Ann shepherding them as far ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... He had no remedy against malice or misapprehension on the part of his accusers, or the witnesses against him, who might be his bitterest enemies; since they were never revealed to nor confronted with the prisoner, nor subjected to a cross-examination, which can best expose error or wilful collusion in the evidence. [44] Even the poor forms of justice, recognized in this court, might be readily dispensed with; as its proceedings were impenetrably shrouded from the public eye, by the appalling ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... place. They told substantially the same story, and all swore that I was engaged in an angry broil with Grammont and another Englishman whom they did not know. They admitted that the conversation was carried on in English, but my advocate's half-contemptuous cross-examination could not set aside the fact that a quarrel, in which I had taken some part, had taken place. After these three, Matthew Hollis was called, and the man whom I had watched upon the quay presented himself. He told, in fair though foreign-sounding ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... and she was esteemed by her neighbours as a wise and good woman. I was shy of her and avoided the house while anxious to get peeps into the plantation to watch the birds and look for nests, as whenever she caught sight of me she would not let me off without a sharp cross-examination as to my motives and doings. She would also have a hundred questions besides about the family, how they were, what they were all doing, and whether it was really true that we drank coffee every morning for breakfast; also if it was true that all of us children, even the girls, when big ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... information he can as to the actual facts surrounding the crime itself. He immediately subpoenas all the witnesses, whether previously interrogated by the police or not, who know anything about the matter, and subjects them to a rigorous cross-examination. Then he sends for the police themselves and cross-examines them. If it appears that any witnesses have disappeared he instructs his detectives how and where to look for them. Often this becomes in the end the most important element in the preparation for the trial. Thus in the Nan ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... last to ask a question," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, raising his voice. "What is the object of this irritable and... malicious cross-examination?" ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... immediately they are observed by their tribunal, fall into the parts they are to play during the trial. One lawyer may be jovial and radiate a cheerful confidence. Another has a superior, detached, and academic air which promises a sarcastic cross-examination. Yet another takes on a blustering, brow-beating, intimidating manner, a kind of overmastering virility. Each kind has its own particular advantages, according to the nature of the parts to be played. The most efficient is the manner of the lawyer who is direct, business-like, ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells

... already beginning to feel angry at the cross-examination. She determined, and why it would be difficult to say, that nothing should induce her to tell her sister Susan what was the subject of the letter. Mrs. Grantly, she knew, was instigated by the archdeacon, and she would not plead ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... Tutt asked not one of them a single question about the murder. Instead he merely inquired in a casual way where they came from, how they got there, what they did for a living, and whether they had ever made any contradictory statement as to what had occurred, and as his cross-examination of Mr. Habu Kahoots was typical of all the rest it may perhaps be set forth as an example, particularly as Mr. Kahoots spoke English, which the others ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... that false accusation at some moment during the play; otherwise we should not know that he was the hero. I saw myself in the dock, protesting my innocence to the last; I saw myself entering the witness box and remaining unshaken by the most relentless cross-examination; I saw my friends coming forward to give evidence ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne

... followed her cousin. She was a little nervous at first, and the Judge requested her to raise her voice. She responded gallantly, and the conviction with which she told her story in corroboration of Jonah produced a noticeable effect upon the Court. The result of her cross-examination was in our favour. I came next. Counsel for the defence made a great effort to pin me to a certain estimate of the speed at which the offending car was moving, but I scented danger and refused ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... in spite of the severe cross-examination by the governor and the consul, stuck to ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng

... Lavender, this sort of cross-examination will lead to but one thing; and you say yourself you won't try to find ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... friend has called your attention to his letter, which I never saw till he read it; my client was protesting against his testimony; but I cannot call him as a witness against this man's evidence, which Mr. Richardson endeavoured by his cross-examination to alter, because it was our duty to endeavour to get some alteration of that evidence, not knowing how he had conducted himself. I do earnestly beg of you to recall to your attention, the answers he gave to my learned ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney

... proffer of that inviolable confidence which I have mentioned, and having won his perfect faith in me, obtain the very fullest history of his case which can be elicited by searching, but most kindly and sympathizing cross-examination. The two statements I collate and enter for my future ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... for life. But this whole consideration belongs to psychology, not to the theory of knowledge (epistemology), which is concerned only with the validity of knowledge, not with its historical origin. Every hypothesis to explain the origin of knowledge must submit to cross-examination by the theory of knowledge, because it works with the fundamental forms and principles of human thought. We cannot go further back than these forms and principles, which it is the aim of epistemology to ascertain and for which no further reason can be given. (The present writer, many years ago, ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... time smoking his pipe by the kitchen fire, which was now deserted, thinking, with a very happy face, on the fortunate chance which had brought him so opportunely to the child's assistance, and parrying, as well as in his simple way he could, the inquisitive cross-examination of the landlady, who had a great curiosity to be made acquainted with every particular of Nell's life and history. The poor schoolmaster was so open-hearted, and so little versed in the most ordinary cunning or deceit, that she could not have failed to succeed in the first five minutes, but that ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... stretching through the window—as a joke. They both laughed uproariously. The hotel man was evidently unwilling to give up any information until it was wrenched out of him, bit by bit. Mr. Daddles continued the cross-examination. ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson

... cross-examination mere 'tormenting' with a purpose, or can we discover underlying it any hint of what Socrates deemed to ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall

... XXII and XXIII of this treaty shall determine. They shall be bound to receive such oral or written testimony as either Government may present. If either party shall offer oral testimony, the other party shall have the right of cross-examination, under such rules as the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... addition to that cultivated and Patagonian population. The grazier stood to his story like a man, and all efforts to break him down by cross-examination were fruitless. There was also another hawbuck who swore to the sheep, and was witness to the assault; so that, in fact, the evidence was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... a confectioner's, sir," said she, in reply to the lieutenant's cross-examination. "He did not tell me which confectioner's. It might have been any one of four or five. He only said that it would all come right, and that I should ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... dine with this man at the club, lunch with this editor at the Cheshire Cheese. At once the chin would go up into the air, the black eyes cloud threateningly. Peter, an unmarried man for thirty years, lacking experience, would under cross-examination contradict himself, become confused, break down ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome

... Merriam. Your questions appear to go beyond the limits of ordinary instruction, and to partake more of the nature of a cross-examination. Such questions take up the time ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham

... fact that it had disappeared. The whip was produced in court and identified by the witness. He also testified to the conversation at the blacksmith shop in the course of which the prisoner had expressed a desire to possess a similar whip. The cross-examination was brief, and no attempt was made to shake ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... decipher her mind toward Newbury; or to get at the truth of what had happened between them. She sat, very pale, and piteously composed; answering the questions they put to her, and sometimes, though rarely, unable to control a sob, which seemed to force its way unconsciously. At the end of their cross-examination, when Sir Wilfrid was ready to start for Martover, the police headquarters for the district, she rose, and said she would go back to ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... employers might see the candidates, and question them on the spot. A lady was at that moment examining a governess, in a loud, imperious voice which we could all hear distinctly. My heart sank at the idea of passing through such a cross-examination as to my age, my personal history, my friends, and a number of particulars foreign to the question of whether I was fit for the work ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... cases, if they were forced to give a distinct answer, they would lie. In every case of this kind, where a child is concerned, the lie is assumed to be a conscious one, and when on being submitted to a strict cross-examination, he hesitates, becomes confused, and blushes, it is looked upon as a proof that he knows he has been telling an untruth, although as a rule there has been no instance of untruthfulness, except the finally extorted confession from the child that he has ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key

... must be admitted that, so far, the physical cross-examination to which Hasisadra has been subjected does not break down his story. On the contrary, he proves to have kept it in all essential respects [4] within the bounds of probability or possibility. However, ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... general tenor of the evidence, they suffer the last impressions, those made by the counsel for the prisoner, to bias their judgment, and to regulate their verdict. In the 2d place, It is customary for the president of the court to enter into a long examination and cross-examination of the prisoner, (assisted and prompted in his questions by the rest of the judges), in a severe and peremptory style, and what is too often the case with the judge, in his anxiety to condemn, to identify himself ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... the next day he received from Mr. Pelton a cipher telegram requesting that the $80,000 should be sent to him at Baltimore, he informed Mr. Tilden what Pelton was doing, whereupon he was recalled and "the thing was stopped." Under cross-examination by Mr. Reed of Maine, Mr. Tilden swore that he knew nothing of any of the telegrams; that the first he knew of the Florida transactions was when they were mentioned to him by Mr. Marble after his return from Florida; ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... lord, you will allow your memory to go back to the cross-examination of Mr. Price, and you will find that when I asked him by what authority he gave the letters he suppressed into the hands of the Crown to be produced here, he stated he had no other authority than his own ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown

... related," replied Edward, who began to feel uneasy at this close cross-examination; "but still, had Colonel Beverley been alive, and the king still required his services, I have no doubt that I should have been serving under him at this time. And now, Mistress Patience, that I have answered so many questions of yours, may I be ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... for taking testimony is needful also in cross-examination. Not only children and slow-witted folk, but also bright persons often answer only "yes'' and "no,''[1] and these bare answers demand a patience most necessary with just this bareness, if the answers are to be pursued for some time and consecutively. The danger of ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... forbidden, but their services are largely availed of by the people, especially the poor and ignorant. At the trial, prosecutor and accused must each manage his own case, the magistrate himself doing all the cross-examination. We say prosecutor and accused advisedly, for as a matter of fact civil cases are rare in China, such questions as arise in the way of trade being almost invariably referred to some leading guild, ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... my detection that I impute my defeat, rather than to any bungling of my own. This is a grim consolation, but it is still a consolation, for I have always prided myself upon being an artist in my line. As I propose to put myself beyond the reach of further cross-examination, I take this opportunity to make a last statement of such things as I care to have known. After this is finished I shall sup on acetate of lead and bid good-night to the ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... his measure in a moment. Pilate is a feeble creature, with no character, insincere, dishonest. He must be made to feel his littleness. We can imagine how our Lord would fix on him a penetrating gaze before which the shallow nature of the man would become apparent, as He asked whether this cross-examination was genuine, or whether Pilate was prompted to it; whether, as we should say, it was "a put-up affair"—"Sayest thou this of thyself, or did others say it concerning Me?" Picture the situation—the ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.

... cross-examination, he said "the reason why he let the matter rest until now was that he did not wish to be the means of bringin' a fellow-creature to an untimely death. His conscience, however, always kept him uneasy, and many a time ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.



Words linked to "Cross-examination" :   cross examine, jurisprudence, examination, cross-question, law, interrogatory, interrogation, leading question



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