Everyone who has followed with any care the evidence
taken in celebrated murder trials or divorce cases knows how
frequently a rigid cross-examination lays bare motives and
prejudices on the part of witnesses which, often without their
knowing it themselves, tend to bias their account of facts.
The problem, therefore, is to devise some means by which these
benefits of a searching cross-examination may be retained and yet
the abuse got rid of. The only feasible way of meeting the
difficulty yet proposed is that of drawing up a series of rules or
general directions as to evidence which shall not attempt to
prescribe formal limits for cross-examination, but shall lay down in
explicit words the general principles which should govern a judge in
such cases. These rules would practically be a definition of the
"discretion" he is now supposed to exercise. They would, for
example, direct him not to allow an examination into matters so
remote in time from the case in hand that they can have no bearing
on the credibility of the witness; not to allow questions to be put
which are plainly malicious and asked for the purpose of irritating
the witness; and not to allow any examination into transactions
which, though they may have a bearing on the character of a witness,
have none on his credibility, _e.
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