The Viva Frei guy said the state was using their objections to coach the witness on the stand. “I object! It could be he was just XXXXX” - so the objection contained a potential response the guy could (and did) then give. He thought the judge needed to warn the lawyer not to use objections to coach the witness.
I worked for many years for a local municipal government (because they owned and operated the airport I worked for). Because of a long-running dispute they had with another jurisdiction over an intergovernmental agreement, I had to serve as a witness and client representative a number of times in litigation between them for breach of contract claims (and was involved in several other, unrelated lawsuits over inverse condemnation claims). Once during a deposition by the opposing attorney, my attorney (who was outside counsel we retained during litigation) just couldn’t help himself and kept muttering portions of answers to questions before I could answer. I’d never seen that before, and the opposing counsel (who I knew well because we had been sparring over the same issue for many years) eventually and rightfully said, “Getting pretty chatty counsel.” It was embarrassing and I knew it was coming because I was thinking the same thing before he finally called him on it.
And it wasn’t like I needed any help; I had plenty of experience testifying. It was actually really distracting. Even after being admonished by the opposing attorney, he still couldn’t help himself and started shaking his head “no” to some questions before I could answer. Again, it was just distracting and a little embarrassing. I certainly didn’t need any “help”, and the more he did it the more I was agreeing with opposing counsel for getting irritated by it. And it surprised me because he was otherwise an excellent attorney (which he should have been, given he came from one of the most high-profile firms representing our industry and he and his firm are very, very, VERY expensive).
On an unrelated side note, one thing I learned as a frequent witness was to be watchful at trial for opportunities that opposing counsel sometimes would inadvertently provide to give a broader answer than they wanted, and in the process provide information that harmed their case. Once in a while they would just get a little sloppy in formulating their questions, which would open the door for me to provide information in my answer that they were trying to avoid.
In most cases, it would be a bad idea for a witness to try to strategically outguess the opposing attorney on cross, and your own attorney could provide the same opportunity on redirect, but I was very experienced at testifying, knew the subject matter and our own legal theory inside and out, and just couldn’t resist sometimes because I knew the opposing counsel well and he had a well-earned reputation for being a total jackass. Funny thing was, I got along with him fine on a personal basis, but when he was in litigation mode he was just unnecessarily aggressive and “jerky.” The last time he cross examined me at trial I actually got him to back off much earlier than he did with all of our other witnesses (none of whom had faced him before, so they got the full inquisition). He knew me so well by then, and I was so practiced at not falling for his leading question phrasing, in addition to gently calling him out a couple of times for pejorative, little snarky digs he added to questions, that he didn’t drag the cross out and even gave me a knowing little smirk as he ended his questioning. He knew I knew what he was doing, so he didn’t pull nearly as much of his gratuitous crap with me as he did with everyone else.
Which is all to say that while as a witness you absolutely should always tell the truth, in doing so if you’re savvy you can toss a little grenade once in a while into the cross examining attorney’s lap, and it’s fun to watch them squirm when it happens. That’s what they get for not formulating their questions tightly enough. On the other hand, Bradley, even though an attorney himself, was anything but savvy. That guy was just a straight up moron who kept pulling the pin on the grenade and dropping it in his own lap.