Page:The Art of Cross-Examination.djvu/123

 preceding chapters have been devoted to the legitimate uses of cross-examination—the development of truth and exposure of fraud. Cross-examination as to credit has also its legitimate use to accomplish the same end; but this powerful weapon for good has almost equal possibilities for evil. It is proposed in the present chapter to demonstrate that cross-examination as to credit should be exercised with great care and caution, and also to discuss some of the abuses of cross-examination by attorneys, under the guise and plea of cross-examination as to credit. Questions which throw no light upon the real issues in the case, nor upon the integrity or credit of the witness under examination, but which expose misdeeds, perhaps long since repented of and lived down, are often put for the sole purpose of causing humiliation and disgrace. Such inquiries into private life, private affairs, or domestic infelicities, perhaps involving innocent persons who have nothing to do with the particular litigation and who have no opportunity for explanation nor means of redress, form no legitimate part of the