Legal Definitions - earwitness

An earwitness is an individual who provides testimony in a legal setting based exclusively on what they heard, rather than what they saw. Unlike an eyewitness, whose account relies on visual perception, an earwitness's evidence comes entirely from sounds, voices, or other auditory cues related to an event.

Here are some examples illustrating the role of an earwitness:

• Imagine a person living next door to a house where a crime occurred. They were inside their own home and did not see anything, but they clearly heard a heated argument escalate, followed by a distinct sound of breaking glass and then a loud scream. Later, they heard a car rapidly accelerate away. In court, this neighbor could serve as an earwitness, testifying about the sequence of sounds they heard, the nature of the voices (e.g., male/female, angry tone), and the specific noises like the glass breaking or the car speeding off, even though they never saw the individuals involved or the incident itself.

• Consider a situation where someone is working in an office building overlooking a busy street. They are focused on their computer and don't look up, but they suddenly hear the unmistakable sound of a car collision – a loud crunch of metal and shattering glass – immediately followed by the distinct screech of tires as one vehicle speeds away. If called to testify, this individual would be an earwitness. Their testimony would focus on the specific sounds they heard, their sequence, and perhaps even the perceived speed or type of vehicle based on engine noise, all without having visually witnessed the accident or the fleeing car.

• A company receives a threatening voicemail. An employee who has known a former disgruntled colleague for years listens to the message and immediately recognizes the voice as belonging to that former colleague, despite never having seen them make the call. In a legal proceeding, this employee could be an earwitness. Their testimony would be based solely on their auditory identification of the voice on the recording, comparing it to their memory of the former colleague's unique vocal characteristics, without any visual evidence of the person speaking.