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How old ARE you, anyway? 
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How old ARE you, anyway?HA! 
formerly known as etaoin...
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I'm pretty sure Faldage wasn't even a gleam in his garandfather's eye during WWI, the "War to end all Wars". And "Peace to end all Peace" is a history book title.
Peace to End All Peace
The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
Fromkin, David, Edited by Elizabeth Stein.
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How old ARE you, anyway?
Not so old that I've forgotten my history lessons.
Faldage wasn't even a gleam in his grandfather's eye during WWI
My grandfather had already gleamed my father by WWI. My father wasn't quite up to the gleaming stage yet.
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hostile witness: Is that a concept unique to American Justice?
Not. English jurisprudence.
Usually you are not allowed to cross-examine your own witnesses because they are considered friendly to your cause.
When the court accepts that the witness you are calling is hostile to your cause, usually because the witness is in the payroll of the other side, the rule against cross-examination is lifted.
Calling a hostile witness is a calculated risk.
The witness may possess critical information which can be extracted under oath which will justify the gamble.
BTW "hostile questioning" refers to the questioning of a "hostile", I believe. It does not describe the nature of the questioning itself.
However "hostile" the questioning of Saddam may be, it will be pampering, cooing and cuddling compared to the grotesque barbarities he practised on his own captives.
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I would have thought that you couldn't cross-examine your own witness, not through judicial fiat, but through definition of the term. The legal definition, per AHD4 is: To question (a witness already examined by the opposing side). http://www.bartleby.com/61/29/C0762900.htmlThis would be the case for a witness called by the opposing side. If you wish to further question your own witness after he has been cross-examined by the opposition it is called redirect examination. http://www.bartleby.com/61/17/R0101700.htmlA hostile witness is one that is unsympathetic to your cause and for whom you get permission from the court to question in a more confrontational manner than is normally allowed. This, at least, is the case in US jurisprudence. Whether the same is true for British jurisprudence I do not know.
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Whether the same is true for British jurisprudence I do not know.
Can't speak for U.S. jurisprudence*, but one can cross-examine one's own witness under english jurisprudence if you can convince the court that the witness is "hostile".
Absent that liberty, you would have little opportunity to impugn the witness' testimony if it couldn't be impugned by any other means.
The exception to the rule against cross-examining your own witness is made because the witness isn't really 'your' witness.
You have called the witness because his/her evidence is critical to your case, but the witness is also demonstrably hostile to your case.
Obviously, the other side will never call the witness, knowing the witness would be exposed to cross-examination.
Rules which do not serve the ultimate ends of justice are arbitrary and unjust, I would argue, in any jurisdiction.
Of course, the court can be expected to impose limitations on the right to cross-examine in these circumstances.
*Perhaps I spoke too soon. I just found the following on the Internet.
National Institute for Trial Advocacy
Part 03 - Cross Examining the Hostile Witness
0.75 Hour Credit valid until January 1, 2004
Brought to you by the NITA
Author: Irving Younger
This course has been approved for Credit in the states of Arizona, Missouri, California, New York, and Colorado.
Perhaps "cross-examining the hostile witness" is not an option in every state, tho I can't imagine why any state would preclude the practice altogether.
[BTW I had the pleasure of attending several of Irving Younger's Trial Advocacy symposiums at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor some years ago.
It was always a fabulous treat to see the great names of American litigation performing their assigned roles on stage.
"Performing" is a word I use quite deliberately because one famous litigator actually insisted that a successful trial lawyer should be a "good actor". I guess we always knew that, but who expected any lawyer to actually admit it, nay, proclaim it as a virtue?]
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Rules which do not serve the ultimate ends of justice are arbitrary and unjust
I agree with you completely here.
As far as what constitutes cross-examination, it seems like we're just arguing defintions. Certainly different venues of jurisprudence may have different defintions.
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it seems like we're just arguing definitions
Yes and no. There is more than nomenclature involved here, I think.
Whatever you call the method of questioning a hostile witness, it is indistinguishable, in appearance and substance, from cross-examination of an opposing witness.
One may question a hostile witness quite effectively without being "more confrontational".
In fact, a deft cross-examiner may disembowel a witness without the witness being conscious of any confrontation at all.
What makes this possible, of course, is the liberty given to the questioner to question the witness' answers. This is a liberty one does not enjoy with one's own witness [unless that witness is adjudged hostile, of course].
Whatever we name the practice of questioning a hostile witness, the practice differs from cross-examination in name only, not in the practice itself.
If that's what you meant when you said "we're just arguing definitions", Faldage, then I agree with you.
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In USn usage, cross-examination is limited to matters that were covered in direct. If you call your witness and ask about things that were done on the evening of the crime I cannot, on cross, ask about that bank robbery two years ago.
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