Question (redirected from questioning)

QUESTION, punishment, crim. law. A means sometimes employed, in some countries, by means of torture, to compel supposed great criminals to disclose their accomplices, or to acknowledge their crimes.
     2. This torture is called question, because, as the unfortunate person accused is made to suffer pain, he is asked questions as to his supposed crime or accomplices. The same as torture. This is unknown in the United States. See Poth. Procedure Criminelle, sect. 5, art. 2, Sec. 3.

QUESTION, evidence. An interrogation put to a witness, requesting him to declare the truth of certain facts as far as he knows them.
     2. Questions are either general or leading. By a general question is meant such an one as requires the witness to state all be knows without any suggestion being made to him, as who gave the blow?
     3. A leading question is one which leads the mind of the witness to the answer, or suggests it to him, as did A B give the blow ?
     4. The Romans called a question by which the fact or supposed fact which the interrogator expected, or wished to find asserted, in and by the answer made to the proposed respondent, a suggestive interrogation, as, is not your name A B? Vide Leading Question.

QUESTION, practice. A point on which the parties are not agreed, and which is submitted to the decision of a judge and jury.
     2. When the doubt or difference arises as to what the law is on a certain state of facts, this is said to be a legal question, and when the party demurs, this is to be decided by the court; when it arises as to the truth or falsehood of facts, this is a question of fact, and is to be decided by the jury.