DOCUMENT AND HANDWRITING ANALYSIS

DOCUMENTS AS EVIDENCE

Document specialists are called to :• Verify handwriting and

signatures• Authenticate

documents• Characterize papers,

pigments, and inks• Restore erased and

obliterated handwriting

• Determine the relative ages of documents and inks

HANDWRITING ANALYSIS

• The primary basis of handwriting analysis as a science is that every person in the world has a unique way of writing.

• When we were all kids in primary school, we learned to write based on a particular copybook - a style of writing.

• Which copybook our handwriting is based on depends on when and where we grew up.

SO, WHY DON’T WE ALL WRITE THE SAME?

• As time passes, those writing characteristics we learned in school - our style characteristics – are changed as we developed individual characteristics that are unique to us, thereby distinguishing our handwriting from someone else's.

• Handwriting experts say that two or more people may share a couple of individual characteristics, but the chance of those people sharing 20 or 30 individual characteristics is nearly impossible.

HANDWRITING ANALYSIS 101

• Handwriting analysts must be able to accurately distinguish between style characteristics and individual characteristics, which takes a lot of training.

• The individual characteristics are what matter the most in determining authorship.

• By comparing a known author’s written piece with an unknown author, handwriting expects look at the differences, not the similarities, between the two samples.

FORGERY!

• If the re are key differences in enough individual characteristics, then the two documents were not written by the same person.

• However, if the differences don't rule out a match, and there are significant similarities in the individual traits in the two documents, singular authorship becomes a possibility.

• The expert’s job is to turn possibility into probability.

THREE TYPES OF FORGERY

• Blind Forgery: made without a model from which to copy

• Simulation: made by copying an actual signature or writing sample

• Traced forgery: made by tracing a genuine writing sample

DETECTING SIMULATION

• Simulation occurs when a person is either trying to disguise his handwriting to prevent the determination of a match or to copy someone else's handwriting to encourage the inaccurate determination of a match.

• There are certain traits that analysts look for to determine whether a handwriting sample is the result of simulation.

• These include shaky lines, dark and thick starts and finishes for words and a lot of pen lifts, all of which come from carefully, slowly forming letters instead of writing quickly and naturally.

WHAT DO HANDWRITING ANALYSTS LOOK FOR?

• Letter form - This includes curves, slants, the proportional size of letters, the slope of writing and the use and appearance of connecting lines (links) between letters.

• Line form - This includes how smooth and dark the lines are, which indicates how much pressure the writer applies while writing and the speed of the writing.

• Formatting - This includes the spacing between letters and between words, the placement of words on a line and the margins left empty on a page. It also considers spacing between lines -- do strokes from words on one line intersect with strokes in words on the line below and above it?

INK ANALYSIS

• Another way to verify the authenticity of a document is to perform ink analysis.

• Non-destructive methods include microscopy and luminescence.

• Microscopy is used to distinguish the type of writing instrument used and the color qualities of the ink.

• Visual or infrared luminescence is used to differentiate between inks.

• It can be used to find the original writing on a document that has been obliterated with a different ink or to distinguish sections that have been altered with different inks.

CHEMICAL INK ANALYSIS

• Chemical ink analysis requires a short length of a document’s line be removed, which destroys part of the document .

• The traditional method for chemical analysis of ink is to use Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC.)

• It  involves removing several "plugs" of ink and paper from the document, dissolving the ink in a solvent, and then spotting the dissolved ink onto a piece of filter paper.

• The filter paper is suspended over a new solvent with just the tip of the filter paper dipped in the solvent.

• The solvent soon migrates up the filter paper, carrying the ink with it. Distinct bands form, based on the physical and chemical composition of the inks . 

CRIME RECONSTRUCTION

• Rarely can experts identify a specific pen as having written various entries on a document. If inks cannot be differentiated one from another by any of the above examinations, this leaves three possibilities:

• The same pen has been used for the entries, or

• Different pens containing the same ink have been used for the entries, e.g. two pens from the same manufacturer, or

• Different pens have been used for the entries which coincidentally contain inks which have identical visual and infrared properties.

• Determining which of these is the case is usually impossible, unless there are significant defects within the writing implement, allowing the identification of a particular pen to be made.

FORENSIC HANDWRITING ANALYSIS VS. GRAPHOLOGY

• Graphology is the pseudoscientific study and analysis of handwriting, especially in relation to human psychology. The graphologist looks at a sample of a person’s handwriting and uses it to diagnose a number of personality traits.

• Forensic handwriting analysis, on the other hand, is the scientific comparison of a known sample of a person’s handwriting to an unknown sample. If possible, the experts use several known examples for the comparison.