A witness box or witness stand is part of a courtroom. It is the section of the room set aside for witnesses to stand or sit in while giving their testimony or presenting evidence. In U.S. English, it is known as the witness stand or merely the stand.
Historically, witness boxes have been elevated well above floor level (although below the height of the Bench, where the judge sits). Before the Separation of church and state, trials were sometimes held in churches. In such cases, the witness stood at the pulpit behind the bar.
In modern courtrooms, witness boxes tend to be only slightly elevated.
Famous quotes containing the words witness and/or box:
“Since body and soul are radically different from one another and belong to different worlds, the destruction of the body cannot mean the destruction of the soul, any more than a musical composition can be destroyed when the instrument is destroyed.”
—Oscar Cullman. Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament, ch. 1, Epworth Press (1958)
“The distant box is open. A sound of grain
Poured over the floor in some eagerness we
Rise with the night let out of the box of wind.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)