S1L37 – Grilling Lessons from Deema: How to crossexamine without tricks
Mister Cabo Buhan, are you alive?” This is my only student with a premed background. He comes from Dagupan City, Pangasinan.
“I am over here sir, quietly metabolizing glucose…”
He also has a reputation of being some kind of class clown who loves to play pranks. One time he stood in front of the building, looking up at the sixth floor. He just fixed his gaze at nothing in particular. People passing by wondered what he was gazing at but he spoke not a word. After a while, he had gathered a sizeable crowd of people gazing up with him, nobody knowing what anybody else what looking at, but everybody not willing to admit they don’t know what they’re all looking at. That’s when Cabo slipped out from their midst, walked a short distance away then ran back into the crowd saying excitedly, “Tumalon na ba? Tumalon na ba?!” Pandemonium followed, culminating in a SWAT unit sending a hostage negotiator to the site. They never found a jumper, of course.
I heard about twenty versions of a suicide jumping story the next day. Only his classmates squealed on him, “Sir, si Cabo kaya yung nagpasimuno!”
His manipulating skills evident this early, I thought this kid better be properly oriented NOW while he’s still a law student. Otherwise he’s bound to become another one of those wicked lawyers that can bambozzle any witness into confessing to the Ninoy Aquino assassination.
“Cabo, have you ever used drugs?” I asked.
“Oh, no, sir! The cumulative pharmacological effect of hallucinogens—”
“No, no, no—don’t practice your med-rep marketing skills on us. I just wanted to give you a sporting chance to deny being a drug addict.” I said.
“Oh…okey, sir. I am not a drug addict.”
“Not so fast, Mister Buhan. We don’t want you violating ‘estoppel’ later…”
“What is ‘estoppel’ again?” Kata whispered to Deema her seatmate who tried to shush her, “Sssssh..!”
“I heard you, Miss Kata!” I said, making the English Literature major blush, “Answer her question, Miss Deema.”
“Yes, sir. ‘…by estoppel a person is prevented from denying any statement, declaration or representation he made as against a person who relied on him making such statement, declaration or representation.”
“Claro, hija mia?” I winked at the blushing Miss Kata.
“Yes, sir. Actually, I KNEW that.”
“NO, you didn’t,” I expected that retort, “you had to ask Miss Deema. I heard you. So I’m relying on my having heard you ask about the meaning of estoppel to conclude that you didn’t know what estoppel means. So you can’t expect me now to believe that you do.” The class let out a mild snicker, while nodding their heads. They get it.
“So now you ALL get it,” I turned to the class, “I’ll flunk anyone who tells me later he didn’t get it because that person would be violating estoppel!” I said, eliciting laughter from these 25 budding lawyers-to-be.
“Anyway, back to you, Mr. Cabo. I’m not going to allow you to just casually deny being a drug addict. I want to ‘seal the deal’ if you know what I mean…Miss Deema?”
I could always rely on Deema to know what I’m thinking NEXT. No sooner had I finished saying her name than she quickly stood up with a book in hand, walked over to where Cabo sat and told her classmate, “Please stand up, Mr. Cabo Buhan, place your left hand on this book and raise your right hand, please….do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“Do I what?”
“ANSWER THE QUESTION!!!” I bellowed and banged the blackboard hard. This is how they will treat you in court, kiddo.
“Yes, Sir! Yes, yes, my answer is YES…my God, Yes…!” I thought only girls blushed. I was wrong.
Deema gave the guy her naughty wicked “Winona Ryder wink,” making him blush even more, before she told him, “You may take a seat, Mr. Buhan…” turned to me and said, “your witness, Professor…!”
I walked over to Cabo seated on his chair, until my hulk loomed over him, “Mr. Cabo, do you know what LSD stands for?”
“Ah, yes, sir. LSD is short for lysergic acid diethylamide, sir. It’s a synthetic hallucinogenic drug that affects the central nervous system,”
“I see. Can you describe for us what some of those effects on the central nervous system are?” I just know he’s dying to jump on a question like that, what with his vast premed knowledge.
“Ah, well, sir, where do I begin…”
“Anywhere,” I snapped in right away. Never allow a witness to ask a rhetorical question.
“Sir, it boosts the brain’s natural dopamine levels, or the so-called pleasure hormone, producing an intense feeling of euphoria…”
“Wow!” I said.
“Yes, sir! It makes you say that.” My bad, never allow a witness to validate YOU instead.
“Now, Mr. Witness, how did we come to posses this medical knowledge about LSD’s effects?”
“Ah, well, sir, this information is from the personal observation and description by persons who have actually ingested the substance!” the premed guy glowed.
“Really? Why can’t those observations be made by very keen third parties with the adequate competence—you know, scientists, doctors, researchers…?”
“Oh no sir, technical competence is not the issue. These observations must be experiential, not anecdotal. They cannot be described from an external perspective…”
“I didn’t really understand most of that, but I’ll take you word for it,” I said. The trap is set!
“So, Mister Buhan, have you stopped using LSD?”
“Sir? Have I what?”
“Miss Deema, please read back the last question for this witness…”
“Mister Buhan, have you stopped using LSD?” Deema quipped from instant memory.
“NO, sir, I have not stopped using…I mean, YES, sir, I have stopped using…wait, wait, wait—what was the question again, Sir?” He just realized that it didn’t matter how he answered that question, he would still be admitting having used LSD.
I saw Hannah raise her hand, so I nodded my head to clear her to talk, “Sir—Your Honor—the question is objectionable. It presumes as fact that the witness has used LSD although there is no prior evidence or testimony establishing that fact.”
This is trouble. Our little Buguias Girl saw a weak spot in my line of questioning. I felt panicky just a little bit. Deema—my ever loyal Deema—stepped in to “rescue” me. “May I take over the direct examination, Your Honor, after all I am the public prosecutor?”
“Please go ahead, fiscal,” I said with relief—that turned out to be shortlived.
“Your Honor, I withdraw that last question.” Deema said, I almost fell of my chair.
“You took over from me and the first thing you do is surrender a near-confession I worked so hard to set up?!” I said, the whole class erupted in laughter.
Deema first looked at me, then looked away as if to say, “Not to worry, Prof, I’ll nail this guy without using a trick question like that.”
“Mr. Cabo, I’m sorry but I thought I heard you admit a while ago that you ingested LSD?” Deema took off in a totally different direction.
“Well, you must not have been listening very carefully because I never made any such admissions hehehe…” Cabo went on the counter-offensive by mocking Deema. Big mistake. Beeeeegg. HUGE.
“No? Didn’t you say that LSD boosts the natural dopamine levels?” Deema said.
“Yes, so?”
“And didn’t you say that this elevated dopamine level produces a feeling of euphoria?”
“Yes, it does. So?”
“In fact, you know what that feeling of euphoria is like, because you described it as ‘intense’?” Deema stressed.
“Well…I imagined it must be intense because the dopamine is elevated,” Cabo began backpedaling.
“No, no, no—YOU said it cannot be imagined. YOU said it cannot be observed from, what term did you use, ‘external perspective’?”
“External perspective,” Cabo was forced to parrot Deema, “Yes that’s right, it cannot be observed from an external perspective. But I was not observing it, I was basing my information from someone telling me—” Cabo was trying to wriggle free, but Deema tightened the visegrip even more.
“No, no, no—you said descriptions of LSD’s effects can only come from an experiential event, it cannot be anecdotal. YOU said THAT…”
“Yes, but I didn’t mean it that way… I suppose it can be anecdotal, if the person receiving the narrative is, you know, specially qualified to document these things—” Cabo was gasping for air, and Deema was moving in to slit his throat.
“No, no, no—YOU said technical competence is not the issue, these observations cannot be made by third parties, didn’t you say that?” Deema thundered.
“I did, but—”
“But what?? YOU said only a person who has actually ingested LSD can describe the feeling of being under the effects of LSD on the central nervous sysyem? Isn’t that what you said?” Deema sank the shank right through the heart.
Mr Cabo Buhan sat silently for a long time, Deema was still in his face and wouldn’t back down. Finally Deema banged the blackboard and bellowed, trying to sound like me, “I’M WAITING FOR YOUR ANSWER!!!”
Cabo looked at me with dog-sorry eyes, “Sir, if I write ‘I understand ‘estoppel CLEARLY now’ fifty times on the blackboard, can I be excused already?”
The whole class exploded in laughter, and for the first time I saw Deema stomping her feet STANDING UP.
Finally I said, “Class, please DON’T copy what I did. I used a trick question that cannot be answered except one way only. And if the defense counsel on the other side was Miss Palindrome over there, you’re in trouble. On the other hand, all Miss Deema did was repeat the same questions I was using when I was setting up an invalid trap. Yet she was able to set up a valid truth concession—not a defective confession—from a witness who was less than candid.
I waited until the class was quiet enough that I could be heard by all clearly: “THAT is the right way to do it….class dismissed.”
Deema caught up with me again in the hallway.
“I’m fresh out of unsolicited compliments, if that’s what you intend to fish out of me, Miss Deema,” I said dismissively.
“No, no, no, sir—I just wanted to say LSD was not a hallucinogenic, it’s a psychedelic, Cabo was wrong even about that.”
I stopped and turned around to face the girl and said, “Miss Deema, you used ‘No, no, no’ FOUR TIMES inside of ten minutes tonight. From now on, ONLY I will be allowed to use that ‘No, no, no’ verbal mannerism, is that understood?”
“Yes, sir! Yes, yes, yes!”
About the Author
The author is a writer and lawyer based in Baguio City, Philippines. Former editor of the Gold Ore and Baguio City Digest, professor of journalism, political science and law at Baguio Colleges Foundation (BCF). He is a photographer and video documentarist. He has a YouTube channel called “Parables and Reason”
About Images: Some of the images used in the articles are from the posts in Atty. Joel Rodriguez Dizon’s Facebook account, and/or Facebook groups and pages he manages or/and member of.