Cap'n Cat wrote:JoltinJoe wrote:
I was serious, but, nevermind, I'll go look it up.
Pay me my hourly rate and I'll explain it to you.
Otherwise, you'll have to ponder D1B's fate in this exchange and learn Socratically what it means to be a hostile witness.
You were being serious?
Ok, a hostile witness is a person who has information which is material to your case and whom you intend (more likely need) to call as a witness to support your case-in-chief or defense, but whose outlook on the case and/or his hopes for the outcome are not consistent with yours. (I say "need" because, generally speaking, a good trial attorney will only use as a hostile witness when there is no other source or way to get critical, material facts into evidence. When there are other ways or sources, an attorney does not need to get that information from a hostile witness. And, because the attorney cannot expect to control the hostile witness the way he can control his own witness, it is not a good idea to use the hostile witness).
However, in order for a court to rule that a witness is "hostile," it is not enough to show that the witness has a different outlook on the case, or that his hopes for the outcome are different than the attorney's hopes. The fact of "hostility" has to be demonstrated through evasion of questioning while on the stand. Therefore, after asking a number of questions which elicit evasive or irrelevant responses, the attorney may ask the court to declare the witness "hostile."
If the court agrees and rules that the witness is hostile, the attorney may now use leading questions and effectively "cross examine" the witness that he has called to the stand. Generally speaking, an attorney may not ask leading questions of witnesses that he calls to the stand, and may only use leading questions when examining the other side's witnesses. This rule changes once a witness is declared to be "hostile" to the party who called that witness.