Evidence Commons^™

Cross-Examination, College Sexual-Assault Adjudications, And The Opportunity For Tuning Up The "Greatest Legal Engine Ever Invented", H. Hunter Bruton

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

With its reputation as the "greatest legal engine ever invented" cross-examination rarely receives critical evaluation. This Article seeks to narrow that academic gap and offer pragmatic advice to policymakers and judges considering the in-the-trenches issues of cross-examination. Despite a great body of empirical and interdisciplinary work on cross-examination, legal scholarship often relegates discussion of cross-examination's benefits and costs to an errant footnote or a short paragraph. But cross-examination's efficacy should not be an afterthought or aside to doctrinal exegesis. Answers to the hardest questions about the presence, scope, and format of cross-examination rely on assumptions about the benefits and costs …