Francis Wellman – ADVOCACY LAW BOOKS

4TH COMMANDMENT OF CROSS-EXAMINATION

By Ron H. Clark|November 3rd, 2011|Books on Cross, F. Lee Bailey, Francis Wellman, Irving Younger|14 Comments

Be Prepared. Do Not Ask a Question to Which You Do Not Know the Answer.THE 4TH COMMANDMENTIrving Younger promulgated the 10 Commandments of cross-examination, and those commandments have guided cross-examiners for decades. But, do they make sense? Should they be Commandments or merely Guidelines? Let’s examine the 4th Commandment: Be prepared. Do not ask a [...]

BEST CROSS-EXAMINATION QUESTION

Sometimes the best question is the one you don’t askAbraham Lincoln’s cross examination of Charles Allen in the Almanac Trial is perhaps one of the most famous cross examinations in American legal history. In our Cross Examination Handbook, we reproduce a transcript of that cross as reported by Francis Wellman in his seminal work, The [...]