Francis L. Wellman

“ Questions which throw no light upon the real issues in the case, nor upon the integrity or credit of the witness under examination, but which expose misdeeds, perhaps long since repented of and lived down, are often put for the sole purpose of causing humiliation and disgrace. Such inquiries into private life, private affairs, or domestic infelicities, perhaps involving innocent persons who have nothing to do with the particular litigation and who have no opportunity for explanation nor means of redress, form no legitimate part of the cross-examiner's art. ”

“ I venture to think that it is the duty of a judge to allow no questions to be put to a witness, unless such as are clearly pertinent to the issue before the court, except where the credibility of the witness is deliberately challenged by counsel and that the credibility of a witness should not be wantonly challenged on slight grounds. ”

“ Nothing could be more unprofessional than for counsel to ask questions which disgrace not only the witness, but a host of innocent persons, for the mere reason that the client wishes them to be asked.
There could be no better example of the folly of yielding to a client's hatred or desire for revenge than the outcome of the famous case in which Mrs. Edwin Forrest was granted a divorce against her husband, the distinguished tragedian. Mrs. Forrest, a lady of culture and refinement, demanded her divorce upon the ground of adultery, and her husband had made counter-charges against her. ”

“ Witnesses are just as necessary for the administration of justice as judges or jurymen, and are entitled to be treated with the same consideration, and their affairs and private lives ought to be held as sacred from the gaze of the public as those of the judges or the jurymen. ”

“ Lord Bramwell claimed to speak after an experience of forty-seven years' practice at the Bar and on the bench, and long acquaintance with the legal profession.
"A judge's sentence for a crime, however much repented of, is not the only punishment; there is the consequent loss of character in addition, which should confront such a person whenever called to the witness-stand." "Women who carry on illicit intercourse, and whose husbands die of poison, must not complain at having the veil that ordinarily screens a woman's life from public inquiry rudely torn aside." ”

“ The complaint against Russell was that by his practices as displayed in the Osborne case—robbery of jewels—not only may a man's, or a woman's, whole past be laid bare to malignant comment and public curiosity, but there is no means afforded by the courts of showing how the facts really stood or of producing evidence to repel the damaging charges. ”