earwitness
An earwitness is a person who testifies about something that they heard and did not see, someone who has firsthand knowledge of an event from hearing that event. These people are often called into a court of law to give testimony about what they have heard. The victim or witness of a crime might not always get a clear view of the suspect, so in cases like telephone fraud or blackmail the sound of the suspect’s voice might provide the only clues to their identity. In such a situation, the police have to rely on earwitness, rather than eyewitness-evidence. The earwitness will be required to describe what the voice sounded like and may be asked to try and identify the suspect from different voices. According to Palmer v. Peyton , the voice of a suspect can be the evidence that determining a person as the committer of a crime, yet solely based on the identifier’s opinion is fraught with the possibility of misidentification, and this weakens its strength as proof of culpability . In Long V. Dutton , the court held that “Earwitness-identification, the same as eyewitness-identification, presents a substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.”
[ Last updated in February of 2022 by the Wex Definitions Team ]
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