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Notes -
The only time I remember hearing this phrase was that one scene in The Dark Knight. What does it actually mean, in practice?
If you call a witness to testify for your side of the case, you can't lead the witness; in other words, the question can't suggest the answer. For example, in a car accident case, if I'm representing the defendant and he's testifying, I can't ask "Were you going about 35 mph at the time of the accident?" The reason is because this effectively amounts to the attorney testifying instead of the witness. If I want to show that the witness was going 35 mph all I have to do is get him to agree with me, which he probably will because we're on the same side of the case. Instead, if I want to show how fast he was going, I would ask something like "How fast were you going at the time of the accident." This isn't enforced that strictly, especially when it comes to general background information that would take forever to elicit by asking non-leading questions, but if it involves anything important counsel will object.
This prohibition doesn't apply when the parties are adversarial to one another. The traditional method of cross-examination is stating facts that are already in evidence and asking the witness to agree or disagree with them in order to create a narrative. Sometimes, however, a party will have to call an adversarial witness. A good example is in a civil trial when the plaintiff calls the defendant to testify. In these cases, it's assumed that since, due to the adversarial nature, the witness won't agree with everything the attorney implies, that the attorney is allowed to ask leading questions. Usually you have to ask a few questions to establish that the witness is hostile, then ask the judge permission to treat them as such.
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