Cross-examination can make true testimony appear false to a jury.
Evidence
The great legal scholar John Wigmore wrote in his treatise On Evidence that “cross-examination is beyond any doubt the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth. A lawyer can do anything with a cross-examination.… He may, it is true, do more than he ought to do; he may make the truth appear like falsehood.” — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 2067
Categorization
- SEED: Essay angle: the machinery of adversarial truth-finding as a machine for manufacturing doubt — Wigmore’s own admission that the engine can invert truth.
- DEEPTHINKING: A paradox at the core of adversarial justice: the greatest truth-engine can be run in reverse, and no corrective exists.
- APHORISMS: Worth keeping as a hard-won warning about any method that claims to extract truth by pressure.
- XREF: connects to: Moral certainty is not proof, and cases are won by locating witnesses. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action , 1018; Nervous, inexperienced expert witnesses read as more honest to juries — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action , 1414; Selective evidence can mislead juries about the case’s credibility. — Lynley Hood, A City Possessed, 2644 (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- Selective evidence can mislead juries about the case’s credibility.
#corroborates(1.00) — Lynley Hood, A City Possessed, 2644 - Cross-examination exposes novel expert testimony as unverified reading rather than tested method
#corroborates(1.00) — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 2106 - Two honest witnesses can report opposite truths about the same event
#expands(1.00) — , A Year of World Stories, 14793 - Questioning expert witnesses’ expertise or incentives is fair game in cross-examination
#corroborates(1.00) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 1052 - Hearsay is excluded because it cannot be tested by cross-examination
#corroborates(1.00) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1385 - Unpublished, unaccepted methods can still reach a jury as confident certainty
#corroborates(1.00) — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 2107 - Some trials turn entirely on disputed facts rather than law.
#corroborates(1.00) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 797 - Some trials dispute legal application while facts go uncontested.
#corroborates(1.00) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 798 - Juries can be influenced by the number of allegations presented.
#qualifies(0.90) — Lynley Hood, A City Possessed, 2583