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7. Questioned Documents
- The University Press of Kentucky
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QUESTIONED DOCUMENTS Forged checks, "poison pen" letters, ransom notes, disputed legal documents , altered ledgers, counterfeit identification papers—these and similar fakes are the targets of the forensic questioned-document examiner. Most of the examiner's methods fall under the heading of handwriting and typewriting comparison orforgery detection and employ various analytical techniques. This chapter's case study involves the "Mormon Forgery Murders ." HANDWRITING COMPARISON The ancient Jews apparently took the first step toward the development of the science of handwriting comparison by recognizing the individuality that is inherent in handwriting. This recognition was codified in the Jewish Mishnah in the first and second centuries.1 Unfortunately, the individuality of handwriting also has served as the basis of another type of "handwriting analysis" called graphology, a pseudoscience that involves the supposed divining of personality from handwriting.2 As British expert Wilson R. Harrison notes, graphological methods have little if any experimental foundation,3 but the work of the questioned-document examiner is established on sound principles: it relies on empirical principles , is self-correcting, and is self-policing (involving peer review and other policing mechanisms) .4 The first time that handwriting was crucial to a widely famous case was during the Dreyfus affair of 1894-95. French army officer Alfred Dreyfus 7 167 1 6 8 CRIME SCIENCE was arrested, tried, and convicted of spying on the basis of a forged letter that purportedly indicated his treason in giving important military secrets to Germany. Unfortunately, the great criminalist Alphonse Bertillon, whose testimony was instrumental in securing Dreyfus's conviction, lacked expertise in the field of handwriting comparison. Instead he tried to apply principles from his own science of anthropometry. Only after twelve years of controversy was Dreyfus declared innocent and freed from prison.5 The first major role that handwriting played in American history was in the "trial of the century," the Lindbergh kidnapping case, which was discussed in chapter 5. In addition to the wealth of other evidence, the ransom letters proved to have been in the "highly personalized" handwriting of Bruno Richard Hauptmann. According to Ordway Hilton in his ScientificExamination of QuestionedDocuments, "An invented form of the x, simplification of the t design ("tit for "did") . . . and the double jfr written in Hauptmann's rugged manner of execution in combination with many other habits left no question that he wrote the ransom letters." (Other unusual traits were a distinctive notwritten as "note," with an open o and uncrossed, tent-shaped t; a to that resembled a w; and a bizarre form of the that looked like "hie.")6 The writing evidence against Hauptmann was assembled by Charles Appel, the founder of the famous FBI crime lab, which opened in 1932. According to one source, "Although Hauptmann's conviction remains one of the most controversial decisions in American judicial history, Appel's handwriting comparison is considered so strong that it is still used in the training of document examiners."7 In the thirty-five years between the Dreyfus and Lindbergh cases, experts in handwriting identification increasingly testified in American courts, particularly in the eastern United States. In 1894 came the first significant modern text that attempted a thoroughly scientific approach to questioned documents, including chemical tests, for detecting alterations —E.E. Hagan's Disputed Handwriting. It was followed by Albert S. Osborn's monumental Questioned Documents in 1910.8 The status of the expert has continued to rise to the present time, when document examiners are thoroughly trained, carefully tested, and professionally certified by forensic bodies such as the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners. Many similarities may exist between two or more examples of writing by different individuals because their authors learned penmanship from the same writing system. According to a forensic instruction manual: [44.221.83.121] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:58 GMT) QUESTIONED DOCUMENTS 169 When a child first begins to learn the art of handwriting, penmanship copy books or blackboard illustrations of the different letters are placed before him and his first step is one of imitation only, by a process of drawing. The form of each letter at first occupies the focus of his attention. As he progresses, the matter of form recedes to the margin of attention, and finally to the subconscious mind. Then the attention is centered on the execution of the various letters—that is, they are actually written instead of drawn. Soon this manual operation likewise is relegated to the subjective mind and the process of writing becomes more...