Our strategy will be to cross-examine the witness with what I call the “compassionate cross,” simply a cross-examination that takes into account that this witness is a decent, ordinary human being facing a moral dilemma. We want to understand him and, before the cross is ended, to speak for him in ways that he cannot speak for himself. The key is to understand what this police officer faces, and to present him to the jury as a man facing a dilemma from which he cannot extricate himself.
