Francis L. Wellman

“ He employed an entirely different method in his cross-examinations. He never assaulted a witness as if determined to browbeat him. "Commenting once on the cross-examination of a certain eminent counsellor at the Boston Bar with decided disapprobation, Choate said, 'This man goes at a witness in such a way that he inevitably gets the jury all on the side of the witness. I do not,' he added, 'think that is a good plan.' His own plan was far more wary, intelligent, and circumspect. He had a profound knowledge of human nature, of the springs of human action, of the thoughts of human hearts. ”

“ To use his own language: "A lawyer who sits in his office and prepares his cases only by the statements of those who are brought to him, will be very likely to be beaten. A lawyer in full practice, who carefully prepares his cases, must study almost every variety of business and many of the sciences." A pleasant humor and a lively wit, coupled with wonderful thoroughness and acuteness, were Butler's leading characteristics. He was not a great lawyer, nor even a great advocate like Rufus Choate, and yet he would frequently defeat Choate. His cross-examination was his chief weapon. ”

“ No one but Mr. Choate himself would have said this. His transcendent genius as an advocate could not have been acquired from any tutelage under Mr. Evarts. When Mr. Choate accepted his appointment as Ambassador to the Court of St. James, he retired from the practice of the law; and it is therefore permissible to comment upon his marvellous talents as a jury lawyer. He was not only easily the leading trial lawyer of the New York Bar, but was by many thought to be the representative lawyer of the American Bar. Surely no man of his time was more successful in winning juries. ”

“ Like Scarlett, Erskine was of medium height and slender, but he was handsome and magnetic, quick and nervous, "his motions resembled those of a blood horse—as light, as limber, as much betokening strength and speed." He, too, lacked the advantage of a college education and was at first painfully unready of speech. In his maiden effort he would have abandoned his case, had he not felt, as he said, that his children were tugging at his gown. "In later years," Choate once said of him; "he spoke the best English ever spoken by an advocate." ”

“ Of course to be enabled to carry out my proposition I must know all about the temporal artery,—its location, its functions, its capabilities to allow the blood to pass through it, and in how short a time a man could bleed to death through the temporal artery; also, how far excitement in a body stirred almost to frenzy in an embittered conflict, and largely under the influence of liquor on a hot day, would tend to produce apoplexy. ”

“ I would rather have lived in a hut, with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant, with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky, with my children upon my knees, and their arms about me. ”

“ Jeremiah Mason was quite on a par with either Choate or Webster before a jury. His style was conversational and plain. He was no orator. He would go close up to the jury-box, and in the plainest possible logic force conviction upon his hearers. Webster said he "owed his own success to the close attention he was compelled to pay for nine successive years, day by day, to Mason's efforts at the same Bar." As a cross-examiner he had no peer at the New England Bar.
In the history of our own New York Bar there have been, probably, but few equals of Judge William Fullerton as a cross-examiner. ”

“ One of the best ways to acquire the art of cross-examination is to study the methods of the great cross-examiners who serve as models for the legal profession.
Indeed, nearly every great cross-examiner attributes his success to the fact of having had the opportunity to study the art of some great advocate in actual practice. ”

“ I suppose the temporal artery is so called because it supplies the flesh on the outside of the skull, especially that part we call the temples, with blood.'
"Witness. 'Yes; that is so.'
"Mr. Butler. 'Very well. Where does the temporal artery take its rise in the system? Is it at the heart?'
"Witness. 'No, the aorta is the only artery leaving the heart which carries blood toward the head. Branches from it carry the blood up through the opening into the skull at the neck, and the temporal artery branches from one of these.'
"Mr. Butler. 'Doctor, where does it branch off from it? ”

“ He is reputed to have taken more money away with him from the Bar than any man of his generation. His leading characteristic when at the Bar, was his marvellous skill in cross-examination. He was associated with Lord Coleridge in the first Tichborne trial, and in his cross-examination of the witnesses, Bangnet and Carter, he made his reputation as "the foremost cross-examiner in the world." [5] Sir Richard Webster was another great cross-examiner. ”

“ It was his striking personality, added to his skill and adroitness, which seemed to give him his overwhelming influence over the witnesses whom he cross-examined. Russell is said to have had a wonderful faculty for using the brain and knowledge of other men. Others might possess a knowledge of the subject far in excess of Russell, but he had the reputation of being able to make that knowledge valuable and use it in his examination of a witness in a way altogether unexpected and unique. ”

“ Mr. Fullerton (laughing) . "Brother Sherman is the only audience I shall want."
Mr. Beecher (sarcastically) . "Perhaps he is the only audience you can get."
Mr. Fullerton. "If I succeed in converting brother Sherman, I will consider my work as a Christian minister complete."
Mr. Fullerton then read a passage from the sermon, the effect of which was that if a person commits a great sin, and the exposure of it would cause misery, such a person would not be justified in confessing it, merely to relieve his own conscience. Mr. Beecher admitted that he still considered that "sound doctrine." ”

“ Butler. 'Doctor, I don't think I will trouble you any further; you can step down.' He did so, and my client's life was saved on that point.
"The temporal artery doesn't go inside the skull at all.
"I had a young client who was on a railroad car when it was derailed by a broken switch. The car ran at considerable speed over the cross-ties for some distance, and my client was thrown up and down with great violence on his seat. ”