Hey now, Rusty was not allowed to participate in any way in the preparation of Pettitte's examination. That would be a conflict of interest!
Forgot about that, it was someone else doing the cross examination.
This whole exchange just seems off. The more I read it, the more it really does seem staged by the defense, with the complicity of Pettitte.
Which is a reasonable way to approach scripting the questions you are going to ask to a 'neutral' (i.e., non-hostile witness and/or one who'd be at least in some ways sympathetic to you and your client). Lead the witness down a path of 'yesses' with questions they couldn't really say 'no' to, and then 'wordsmith' an additional question that (based on previous questions/the path they've been down) they will most likely answer 'yes' to. It is a risk to be weighed seriously, but one often worth taking.
And don't know if its BS or not, but learned a long time ago (and its been my impression since) that if I really wanted to get a 'yes' in a deposition to a question that someone would be inclined to answer 'maybe' or 'no' to as well, that the best way to do so was to ask a series of no-doubt questions that required simple 'yes' answers, and then throw in the 'iffy' question. Much more often than not, the folks'd get in a 'rhythm' and give me a yes there as well.
