Years ago a friend of mine asked me (Bob Dekle) to watch
a late night television show with him. In the show, a psychic summoned dead
relatives from beyond the pale to talk to his guests. The show began with some
appropriate music, a video of stars swirling in the galaxy, and a voice-over
talking about communicating with the dear departed. The star came onstage and
summoned the first subject to join him. After a few preliminaries, the psychic
began his spiel, asking questions of the subject and then making remarkably
accurate observations about the person whom the subject wanted summoned from
the beyond. Before the ghost of the departed relative made his appearance, I
said to my friend, “You see what he’s doing, don’t you?” My friend had no idea.
I explained. “The psychic is picking the subject for information and then
feeding it back to her.” My friend considered what I had said for a moment and
then replied, “You sure know how to spoil a party, don’t you?”
Although I didn’t know it at the time, I had just
witnessed my first “cold reading.” Cold reading is a technique used by psychics
to extract information for use in conjunction with Tarot readings, séances, and
the like. Con artists also use the
technique to extract money from their victims, and confidential informants use
it to give the appearance of assisting law enforcement without really telling
the officers anything that wasn’t already known. The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading gives a thorough description of
the techniques involved. In reading that book, I was struck by the similarities
between cold reading and concession-seeking cross-examination.
1. Both
techniques are tools of persuasion. In the one the audience for persuasion is
the person being questioned, in the other the audience is the jury.
2. Cold
reading seeks to persuade the subject what wonderful talent the reader has; concession-seeking
cross-examination seeks to persuade the jury what a wonderful case the examiner
has.
3. Cold
reading seeks to achieve persuasion by discovering previously unknown facts to
use in achieving persuasion; concession-seeking cross examination seeks to
achieve persuasion by disclosing previously known (or strongly suspected) facts
to use in achieving persuasion.
4. Cold
reading achieves persuasion by extracting facts from unwitting subjects; concession-seeking
cross-examination achieves persuasion by extorting facts from unwilling
witnesses.
5. Both
techniques work from general and non-controversial facts to specific and vital
facts.
A cold reading might progress something like this:
Q. I’m getting the feeling that there is a significant
person in your life whose name starts with J—perhaps Jane or Jamie or Joan,
does that feel right to you?
A: Well, I don’t have any girlfriends, but my boss is
named John.
Q: John is a significant person in your life?
A: Yes, very.
Q: This wouldn’t involve issues relating to John’s making
unfair demands upon you?
A: No, nothing like that.
Q: I didn’t think so. So you have a cordial relationship
with your boss?
A: Yes. I really enjoy working for him.
Q: John has more or less taken you under his wing?
A: Yes.
Q: Mentored you?
A: Yes.
Q: Tried in every way to help you to succeed and excel?
A: Yes.
Q: He might even be grooming you to take over his job
when he retires.
A: Yes, that’s right. How on earth could you possibly
know that?
Assume that John is the defendant in a lawsuit and this
person is called as a witness on his behalf. A concession-seeking
cross-examination seeking to lay the groundwork for an impeachment for bias
might run something like this.
Q: You’ve worked for John for quite some time?
A: Yes.
Q: You have a cordial relationship?
A: Yes.
Q: You enjoy working for him?
A: Yes.
Q: He’s taken you under his wing?
A: Yes.
Q: Mentored you?
A: Yes.
Q: Helped you to excel in your job?
A: Yes.
Q: In fact, he’s mentoring you to take over his job when
he retires next year?
A: Yes.
Q: You owe him a great debt of gratitude?
A: Yes.
The difference between the two is that the cold reader
begins with a plausible guess, draws reasonable inferences from the facts
admitted, and discovers a fact which convinces the subject he has true psychic
powers. The concession-seeking cross-examiner begins with an uncontested fact
and builds upon that fact with reasonable inferences and other known facts to
the point of painting the witness into a corner where the witness must admit a
disagreeable fact.
One of the best jobs of employing this technique which I
have ever witnessed came in a double murder case occurring at a pool hall. The
only eyewitness to the crime was the defendant’s brother, who steadfastly
refused to testify. Finally, the witness was persuaded to testify in order to
be released from a jail sentence for contempt of court. If he had been directly
asked about the killing, he would have immediately [and somewhat truthfully]
said “I didn’t see nothing.” The cross-examiner began the examination with
non-controversial facts, such as the fact that the two brothers went out on the
town the night the murder occurred. Moving slowly and methodically from that
uncontested fact to other uncontested facts, the examiner slowly drew the noose
tighter and tighter. By the end of the cross-examination the examiner had the
witness standing outside the pool hall with his brother, who was angry over
some slight perpetrated by one of the two men in the bar. The examiner slowly
walked the witness through his brother’s opening the trunk of the car, removing
a sawed-off shotgun, checking to see if it was loaded, and going back into the
pool hall. Then the examiner had the witness describe the report of two
gunshots followed by his brother leaving the pool hall and putting the shotgun
back into the trunk. Mission accomplished.
The author of Cold
Reading describes this technique as the “cream principle.” When creaming
coffee, pour in a little at a time until you get it right. If you try to put it
all in at once, you will likely ruin the coffee. The author’s “cream principle,” as well as
several other techniques he describes, can very profitably be used by the
concession based cross-examiner.
