Concept

Redirect and Recross

Scope of examination

Redirect and Recross

Federal Rule 611(b) speaks only to cross-examination. Cross should stay within the subject matter of the direct and matters affecting credibility, although the court may allow inquiry into additional matters as if on direct.¹ The rule says nothing about the rounds that follow, yet the same principle carries into them. After cross, the party who called the witness may question again on redirect, and the cross-examiner may follow with recross. Each round generally sticks to the issues raised in the round before it, or turns to credibility.² That extension comes from principle and practice, not from the rule's words. An answer that says Rule 611(b) expressly confines redirect and recross misstates where the limit comes from.

Why each round answers the last

Each round is a response. Direct puts the calling party's account before the jury, cross answers it, redirect answers what cross brought out, and recross answers what redirect added. The round before therefore marks the ground the next may cover. Without that limit, every turn would let a lawyer reopen any topic, and one witness would become a string of fresh direct examinations. The number of rounds belongs to the trial judge, who decides how many redirect and recross examinations are needed to present the full testimony.³

What redirect is for

Redirect has one job: to meet new facts, or to rehabilitate a witness after cross brought out impeaching matter. It does so with evidence that denies, explains, qualifies, disproves, repels, or otherwise sheds light on what cross developed.⁴ The witness may be asked questions designed to:

explain an apparent inconsistency between the direct and the cross;
deny or explain the making of an alleged prior inconsistent statement, which Rule 613 contemplates;
correct an inadvertent mistake made on cross;
bring out circumstances that repel an unfavorable inference raised on cross;
bring out prior consistent statements admissible under Rule 801(d)(1)(B);
bring out other aspects of an event, transaction, conversation, or document that shed light on what cross developed.⁵

Every item answers something cross did. A question that answers nothing cross raised falls outside the job. A witness may not be asked on redirect whether the direct testimony was the truth, because the answer does not rehabilitate, and a witness normally may not simply repeat on redirect what he said on direct.⁶

Hypothetical Illustration

Delgado testifies on direct that the delivery truck ran a red light. On cross, defense counsel confronts him with a statement to an insurance adjuster, recorded as saying the light may have been yellow. On redirect, the plaintiff's lawyer first asks whether he told the jury the truth this morning. The court sustains the objection: the question answers nothing cross raised, and the reply would only bolster. The lawyer then asks Delgado how the statement came to be written. He says the adjuster filled in the form while he lay in the emergency room, and that he signed without reading it. That question is proper, because it meets the impeachment cross brought out. If his answer also raises something the jury has not yet heard, such as the pain medication he had taken before signing, the defense lawyer may recross on it.

Leading questions on redirect

Whether a leading question is proper turns on the form the refutation takes. Where the witness is denying or affirming, a leading question that incorporates particular factual matters is generally proper.⁷ Where the refutation takes another form, such as explanation, the lawyer may not build the explanation, or other testimony desired, into the question itself.⁸ A pointed question answered yes or no leaves the testimony with the witness. A question that supplies the explanation puts the lawyer's words in the witness's mouth. In the Delgado scene, a question asking whether he ever told the adjuster the light was yellow may be put in leading form, but the circumstances of the signing must be drawn out with open questions.

Recross

Recross follows the same logic one step further. Its function is to meet new factual matters, or to rehabilitate the witness on credibility matters, brought out for the first time on redirect.⁹ Inquiry that merely repeats testimony developed on cross is normally improper.¹⁰ The defense lawyer in the Delgado scene may therefore test the emergency-room explanation, which surfaced for the first time on redirect, but may not walk the witness back through the impeachment already done on cross. The scope and extent of recross rest in the court's discretion.¹¹

The judge's discretion

The judge keeps room to move in either direction, beyond the power to set the number of rounds. The judge may permit new matters, usually matters left out of the direct through oversight, and may even allow repetition of matters testified to on direct, subject to appropriate recross on what is added.¹² That condition ties the layers together. Matter that enters for the first time on redirect has had no cross, so recross gives the opponent the chance to answer it. The judge may likewise let the proponent repair omissions in the direct by allowing redirect questions that go beyond the scope of cross.¹³ That power parallels the court's authority under Rule 611(b) to allow inquiry into additional matters.¹⁴

To test a redirect or recross question, ask what it responds to. If it answers impeachment or new facts from the preceding round, it is proper. If it answers nothing, it is improper unless the judge exercises discretion to allow it, and then the opponent gets recross on what it adds.¹⁵