Witness Examinations are the Core Part of Your Argument
The entire argument of your side is dependent on the examinations of your witnesses. All information given to the judge comes from the direct and cross examinations, not the opening or closing.
The direct examinations are your team's turn to tell the story from your perspective. For example, in the 2015/2016 case, a brewery owner is kidnapped. During the direct examination of the victim, it is important to show how they were scared for their lives and how cruel the kidnappers were, while the defense would hope to avoid speaking about it as much as possible, and instead try and show that the defendant was no where near the victim at the time.
The direct examination is all about the witness.
During the direct examination, the lawyer should ask their witness questions that let the witness tell the story instead of telling the story through the questions. Following the above example, one question the attorney might ask could be, "What happened to you on June 15, 1933?" Whereas asking, "Is it true that you were kidnapped on June 15, 1933?" would be not only detrimental, but against the rules.
The opposite is true for the cross examination. On the cross examination, the attorney is questioning a witness on the opposing team, so their goal is to make sure to structure their questions so that the witness can only answer yes or no, instead of giving them an answer they don't want. For example, on cross examination a attorney might ask, "You could not see who your kidnapper was, could you?" instead of asking, "Who could you see when you were kidnapped?"
This type of questioning is called a leading question, where the answer is implied in the question. It is only allowed to be used on cross examinations, as it will be objected to on direct examinations.
The re-direct and re-cross follow the same rules and patterns as the direct and cross, but are simply used to expound upon points made on direct and cross, and mainly used to help refute information brought up on cross. However, it is important to remember that the only information that can be brought up on re-direct/re-cross is information the was already mentioned in the normal direct and cross, meaning that you can't use the re-direct to bring up a point that was forgotten on direct.
The direct and cross examinations of the witnesses are the key parts of the trial because they present all the information and build each side's argument.
The direct examinations are your team's turn to tell the story from your perspective. For example, in the 2015/2016 case, a brewery owner is kidnapped. During the direct examination of the victim, it is important to show how they were scared for their lives and how cruel the kidnappers were, while the defense would hope to avoid speaking about it as much as possible, and instead try and show that the defendant was no where near the victim at the time.
The direct examination is all about the witness.
During the direct examination, the lawyer should ask their witness questions that let the witness tell the story instead of telling the story through the questions. Following the above example, one question the attorney might ask could be, "What happened to you on June 15, 1933?" Whereas asking, "Is it true that you were kidnapped on June 15, 1933?" would be not only detrimental, but against the rules.
The opposite is true for the cross examination. On the cross examination, the attorney is questioning a witness on the opposing team, so their goal is to make sure to structure their questions so that the witness can only answer yes or no, instead of giving them an answer they don't want. For example, on cross examination a attorney might ask, "You could not see who your kidnapper was, could you?" instead of asking, "Who could you see when you were kidnapped?"
This type of questioning is called a leading question, where the answer is implied in the question. It is only allowed to be used on cross examinations, as it will be objected to on direct examinations.
The re-direct and re-cross follow the same rules and patterns as the direct and cross, but are simply used to expound upon points made on direct and cross, and mainly used to help refute information brought up on cross. However, it is important to remember that the only information that can be brought up on re-direct/re-cross is information the was already mentioned in the normal direct and cross, meaning that you can't use the re-direct to bring up a point that was forgotten on direct.
The direct and cross examinations of the witnesses are the key parts of the trial because they present all the information and build each side's argument.