Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

It has been found advantageous at times when confronted with an honest and respectable witness to refrain from pressing him hard, since it is often the case that those who would have defended themselves manfully against attack are mollified by courtesy. But every question is either concerned with the case itself or with something outside the case. As regards the first type of question counsel for the

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defence may, by adopting a method which I have already recommended for the prosecutor, [*](Alive, § 17, 18.) namely by commencing his examination with questions of an apparently irrelevant and innocent character and then by comparing previous with subsequent replies, frequently lead witnesses into such a position that it becomes possible to extort useful admissions from them against their will.

The schools, it is true, give no instruction either as to theory or practice in this subject, and skill in examination comes rather from natural talent or practice. If, however, I am asked to point out a model for imitation, I can recommend but one, namely that which may be found in the dialogues of the Socratics and more especially of Plato, in which the questions put are so shrewd that although individually as a rule the answers are perfectly satisfactory to the other side, yet the questioner reaches the conclusion at which he is aiming.

Fortune sometimes is so kind that a witness gives an answer involving some inconsistency, while at times (and this is a more frequent occurrence) one witness contradicts another. But acute examination methodically conducted will generally reach the same result which is so often reached by chance.

There are also a number of points strictly irrelevant to the case on which questions may be put with advantage. We may for example ask questions about the past life of other witnesses or about the witness' own character, with a view to discovering whether they can be charged with some disgraceful conduct, or degrading occupation, with friendship with the prosecutor or hostility toward the accused, since in replying to such questions they may say something which will help our cause or may be convicted

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of falsehood or of a desire to injure the accused. But above all our examination must be circumspect,

since a witness will often launch some smart repartee in answering counsel for the defence and thereby win marked favour from the audience in general. Secondly, we must put our questions as far as possible in the language of everyday speech that the witness, who is often an uneducated man, may understand our meaning, or at any rate may have no opportunity of saying that he does not know what we mean, a statement which is apt to prove highly disconcerting to the examiner.