Ever had a witness who was denying that he made a statement to the police, or had a witness who pretended not to know what the contents of his statement was that HE made to the police or a witness that said he never saw his statement prior to signing it.

Then this article is for you.

Lets call this:  Witness Denial Destruction 101.

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Important:

Always have the basis laid for the statement of a witness first, before cross examine him on ANYTHING.  You must first get all the info you want from a witness, all the things you want him to agree with, before you start telling him that he is a liar.

Do not make him angry, and then, ask him to agree with you on other aspects.

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This is a very common problem we have with witnesses.  They deny knowledge of the contents of a statement to the police, and now we can not use it in cross examination.  Well if you thought the witness had you there, you where wrong!!  You can get that statement in as evidence, regardless what the witness say.

This is how you do it.

First things first.

In order to be able to cross examine on a witness's statement you need to first of all lay the basis for that statement to go in.  This is a very important step, doing this wrong will open up doors for the witness to run through, and get out of his lies, before you even started.  So go about this very clever.

Remember: Because you are cross examining you are allowed to ask leading questions.  So why are you not doing it?  Do it!! It will help you.

Here is a way of phrasing questions to get the response you want.

What you need to determine, so the statement can be used is:

1. That the witness made the statement.
2. That the contents comes from the witness and he told it to the official whom wrote it down.
3. That the contents of the statement was either read by himself, or read back to him, by the officer prior to signing the statement.
4. The witness must then physically look at the statement and confirm his signature to court.

Only then can the statement be used for cross examination.  This is also called “the basis” that has to be laid before questioning.

So getting back to business, how to you phrase those questions?  This is what I do and what has served me very well in the past.