Death By A Thousand Cuts is a form of torture. Literally. The subject is repeatedly and slowly cut, with each cut inflicting a small amount of pain and bloodshed. One individually is not enough to kill the subject. But together, by the end, after many cuts, the subject is done. Psychologically speaking, Death By A Thousand Cuts occurs when something negative is happening to another but it is happening slowly, incrementally and almost without notice until it is too late.
Approaching a witness for cross examination, many lawyers want a clean, knockout punch – one shot that ends the witness’ credibility. Those Perry Mason / Matlock moments rarely, rarely happen. While my approach to cross examination can lead to knockout punches, and sometimes does, what more often happens is that the witness’ credibility is destroyed, i.e., killed, slowly. Death By A Thousand Cuts.
In this episode, I discuss a cross examination of an agent who was part of a large, multi-jurisdictional task force that was investigating a group of people in the Chicago, Illinois and metro-Detroit area. My client, a man in his 60’s was among the defendants. Four (4 ) others were charged as well. They were all charged with Conspiracy To Deliver 1000 grams or more of a controlled substance and Possession of a 1000 grams or more of a controlled substance. Specifically, the government was accusing them of taking part in an intricate plot to transport cocaine in kilogram quantities from Chicago through Michigan and beyond.
My client was locked up during the entire case. Our defense? He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The police had been overly aggressive in their pursuit of those involved and in the process charged an innocent man.
Central to the state’s case was what the police described and alleged as an exchange in which my client transferred drugs (in a piece of luggage) from his vehicle to another. Later, when the other vehicle was stopped, the police located the drugs. One officer claimed to have observed the transfer, while another claimed to have followed my client from his apartment to the location of the alleged transfer – a self-car wash. Both witness’ testimony were potentially damaging to my client’s defense. This episode is about the latter officer, the one conducting surveillance and how I undermined his credibility entirely.
I listened very carefully to his testimony both in a previous hearing and during the trial. He claimed to see my client pull directly into the car wash. Despite what he as claiming, it was my opinion that he hadn’t seen anything of the sort. I wanted to cast doubt on that claim. Sometimes witnesses claim to see things when in reality they are just putting pieces together of events they did see and then filling in the gaps with what seems logical. They do this for many reasons – some to help their case, some because they are biased, some because they think they won’t get caught and some because they should have been in a position to see something important but failed to do so. I believed all of the above applied here. Take a listen and see how I revealed, through a killer cross examination, our truth as to what really happened.
Question after question was like cut after cut. In the end, the witness’ credibility was destroyed, i.e., killed. Death by a Thousand Cuts.
Please be aware we are relying on impressions, recollections, memories and interpretations.
