Lesson 2-History of Forensic Document Examination

HISTORY OF FORENSIC
DOCUMENT EXAMINATION
OBJECTIVE
 At the end of this chapter, the student will be able to:
 Narrate the history of writing and forgery;
Enumerate the important events in USA involving the
pioneers of document examination
Cite historical cases on the development of questioned
document examination
HISTORY OF HANDWRITING
 Writings are letters that are written or imprinted on a surface to
represent the sounds or words of a language. It consists of messages that
convey ideas to others. Its evolution is based on man’s desire to
communicate his thoughts with others.
 If you look at the early history of every culture, you would probably
find that its primitive people had an oral language and an early stage of
writing. They probably devised some sort of means to communicate
with others through visible signs that could be understood by other.
Examples of early writings include records that were engraved into
stone, carved in wood, pressed into clay tablets and marked on animal
skins.
 Cave drawings are of course the most familiar of early writings. They
are, in fact, the first record of prehistoric people. Cave drawings are
called petroglyps or petrograms and they developed between 20,000 and
10,000 BC. These paintings gradually developed into word pictures or
ideographs, which were used by Sumerians, Chinese, Aztecs, Mayas,
and Egyptians. Egyptian word pictures are called hieroglyphics
(Koppenhaver, 2007)
 These word pictures developed into symbols which were then used to
represent sounds or syllables called phonographs. This then developed into
simplified phonetic symbols called the phonetic alphabet, an alphabet of
characters intended to represent specific sounds of speech. The Sumerians
are generally credited with the development of first alphabet.
 The Phoenician alphabet, which was used and spread by Phoenicians
throughout the world between 1700 and 1500 BC, consisted of 22 letters
and was written from right to left. The Phoenician alphabet was assimilated
by many cultures and became widely used.
 The Greek alphabet was derived from the Phoenicial alphabet and has been used
by the Greeks since 8th century BC. The word alphabet stems from the first two
letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta. Their alphabet consisted of 24
letters and included vowels. The Greeks changed the writing direction from left
to right.
 The Greek alphabet evolved into the Roman alphabet or the Latin alphabet,
which initially consisted of disconnected capital letters for several centuries,
Roman scribes invented the lowercase letters that were patterned from the
capital letters. These letters simplified the forms and made it easier to copy
manuscripts.
 The Greek alphabet is still used in Greece, Cyprus, and Crete. The Cyrillic
alphabet derived from the Greek is used in Russia and Eastern European
countries.
HISTORY OF FORGERY
 The practice of forgery, or the falsification and alteration of writing with
intent to defraud, is as old as writing itself. The crime of forgery has
been practiced since ancient times where writing existed. Below are
important event in the history of Forgery (Koppenhaver, 2007).
 80 BC-Romans prohibited the falsification of documents that
transferred land to heirs.
Middle Ages-Forgery became prevalent in Europe.
1562-England passed a statute prohibiting forgery of publicly recorded
and officially sealed documents, specifically those pertaining to titles for
land.
HISTORY OF FORGERY
 Below are important event in the history of Forgery (Koppenhaver, 2007).
 1726-False endorsement on an unsealed private document became a
crime punishable by pillory, fines, imprisonment, and even death.
1819-England issued one pound bills inscribed on ordinary white paper with
a simple pen and ink, resulting in massive forgeries and the arrest of 94,000
people, 7,700 of which were sentenced to death.
1823-The United States enacted the principal federal forgery statute that
prohibited false making, forgery, or the alteration of any writing for the
purpose of obtaining financial gain.
1962-The American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code simplified and
defined the elements of forgery and became the standard for defining the
crime of forgery.
Expert Witnesses and Pioneers of Document Examination
 In 539 AD in Rome, the Justinian Code permitted judges to appoint experts to

give testimony in court regarding the genuineness of a writing based on a
comparison with other admitted genuine writings (Koppenhaver, 2007).
 The English followed the Justinian Code, but only allowed witnesses to
testify regarding the authenticity of signatures if they had knowledge of or
had seen the disputed signature written. Experts were allowed to make
comparisons in non-jury trials, but handwriting samples that were not part of
the case were not allowed to be used for the comparison of handwriting by
the witnesses, which resulted to hampered of identification then the English
Parliament changed this in 1954 by allowing the introduction of genuine
writing that was not part of the court case for the purpose of comparing.
 The United States of America based their laws on the English common law
and permitted comparisons in court cases. Below are important events in the
history of document examination in the USA:
 1812-The earliest record of expert comparison testimony in America was in
Sauve v. Dawson, where a signature on a promissory note was proved genuine.
However, handwriting identification did not become popular until much later in
the 19th century.
 1814-In Homer v.Wallis, 11 Mass. 309, the court permitted the submission of
writings and the evidence of witnesses on the comparison of a disputed writing.
 Below are important events in the history of document examination in the

USA:
 1914-Congress enacted the Statute of 1913, which accepted such
comparisons to be used as competent evidence in court to prove or disprove the
genuineness of a person’s handwriting.
 1867-The first significant forgery case was tried in Massachusetts involving the
traced signatures of Sylvia Ann Howland of New Bedford. The most significant
testimony came from Fr. Benjamin Piece, a mathematician from Hardvard who
testified on the mathematical probability of identical strokes being made in two
different signatures. He claimed that the likelihood of strokes occurring in two
separate signatures could occur only once in 931,000,000,000,000,000,000. His
methodology was subsequently proven to be inaccurate.

USA:
 1894-Handwriting identification became sufficiently well known
that two New York experts published books on the subject: William
E. Hagan published Disputed Handwriting and Persifor Fraser
published A Manual for the Study of Document (re titled Bibliotics of
the Study of Documents).
1900-Daniel Ames wrote Ames on Forgery, one of the first books on
document examination. Around this time, handwriting experts who
were mostly calligrapers began to testify in court as expert witness.
USA:
 1900-Roland B. Molineux was convicted for first degree murder. Molineux
mailed a bottle labeled “Emerson’s Bromo-Seltzer’ but had powder containing
cyanide of mercury. It was ingested by an innocent victim who died by
poisoning. The landmark case involved at least 17 handwriting experts,
including albert Osborn, the father of document examination
 1902-Albert T. Patrick was convicted for conspiring to murder his millionaire
client, William Marsh Rice. The Rice Will Case required handwriting testimony
to proved that Patrick forged Rice’s name on several checks and a will after he
had murdered Rice. Albert Osborn testified in this case to the fact that the checks
and will were traced forgeries. He was allowed to use photographs on
transparent paper to show that the four questioned signatures were identical.
USA:
 1904-John H. Wigmore wrote The Law of Evidence, which
revolutionized the legal profession regarding expert testimony.
1910-Albert Osborn published his seminal book Questioned
Documents, the first comprehensive book on the subject and
considered as the “bible” of document examination. The principles of
handwriting identification that he described are still the basis for the
comparison of handwriting today.
1930-The first scientific police laboratory was established
1932-The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) opened their
laboratory with one document examiner.
HISTORICAL CASES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
 Forensic document examination developed as an organized discipline
throughout the 20th century, particularly in the U.S.A. One milestone is
the publication of Albert S. Osborn’s Questioned Documents, in 1910,
which is now considered the beginning of modern questioned document
examination. The book continues to be recognized as an authoritative
resource on the examination of handwriting and other traditional
documents. Osborn’s determination to advance the subject did not end
in publication of books and appearance on court trials as an expert
witness. He also founded the American Society of Questioned
Document Examiners in 1942 (Tilstone, Savage & Clark, 2006)
ASSIGNMENT
1. Make a research on a cave drawings and 2 examples or images of
writings of the following:
a. “petroglyps” or “petrograms”
b. ideographs by Sumerians
c. hieroglyphics by Egyptians
d. Phoenician Alphabet
e. Greek Alphabet
f. Roman Alphabet
g. Latin Alphabet
ASSIGNMENT
2. Conduct a research on the following historical cases that involved
questioned documents which contributed to the advancement of forensic
document examination as a discipline in the twentieth century:
a. The Dreyfus Affair in 1894
b. The Bobby Franks kidnap and murder in 1924
c. The Lindberg Kidnapping Trial in 1935
d. The Clifford Irving and the Howard Hughes Biography in 1972
e. The Mormon Will in 1978
f. The Hitler Diaries in 1983

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HISTORY OF FORENSIC

 In 539 AD in Rome, the Justinian Code permitted judges to appoint experts to

 Below are important events in the history of document examination in the

 Below are important events in the history of document examination in the

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