Wild Justice Part 34

Chapter 32

When the hearing commenced again, the doc.u.ment examiner began his testimony. "I have examined the doc.u.ments in question and found that six were written by Diana Trenchant and two probably were."

Allen Avery was a tall, heavy-set man, florid of face and nearly as ugly as Jimbo. He looked like a twenty-year cop and lowered his monster brows fiercely at Diana whenever he referred to her. His presentation was not as ornate as that of Alice Stebbins. Instead of using blown up photographs of individual letters, he pa.s.sed out copies of a single sheet on which there were two columns of letters.

One column was labeled standard, the other unknown.

He testified that he had found enough similarities in these particular letters to identify the writer.

Frank a.n.u.se asked if another examiner would find the same similarities in the same letters.

The answer was, "Given equal training, they should pick out the same things that I did." He went on to explain that examples were given in books and the doc.u.ment examiners studied the books.

On being asked if the material could have been written by an expert forger, he answered much differently than the first doc.u.ment examiner. "Who would know? I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but I don't feel that it was." If the women on the panel had been alert, they would have challenged a scientist that felt a conclusion--feelings were more in the realm of the arts.

Science was supposed to deal with facts.

He explained that he had asked for more standards because the ones sent were not complete. Yet the first a.n.a.lyst had said she was one-hundred-percent certain on the basis of what was sent.

"I wanted more recent samples to see what variations there were.

We don't write every letter the same every time. We look for the range."

Asked if handwriting a.n.a.lysis was as exact as fingerprints, he said, "It is as individual and as unique as fingerprints."

Yet when asked if a number of different a.n.a.lysts looked at the same doc.u.ments, would they all agree, he answered, "If they had equal training and experience."

After a short recess, Diana was allowed to examine the witness.

Her first question was directed toward the authenticity of the standards submitted. "Do you know of your own knowledge that the exemplars sent to you were all written by me?"

"No."

She turned to Henry and said, "then, I request that this report be removed from evidence since it states facts that this examiner declares are false."

While Henry looked at her incredulously, she read from the examiner's report, ill.u.s.trating all the places where the standards were referred to as being her handwriting or printing.

Henry was outraged. "Of course, when he writes that in his report, he means that he is using my communication with him.

I wrote that these were samples of your handwriting, that I had every reason to believe that they were."

Diana persisted. "I see nothing in the report to the effect that he was 'told' anything as you state. He very definitely writes that they ARE standards of my handwriting. Now he says under oath that he does not know. These errors nullify the report."

"I feel that the report tells us what we asked from the doc.u.ment examiners."

With that, Henry thought, the book is closed. No one could argue with that.

You get what you pay for. Case closed.

Doggedly, Diana continued. "Did you do a top of the letter pattern?"

"I beg your pardon. Would you explain what you mean by top of the letter pattern?"

With subsequent questions, Diana established that he did not know what bottom of the letter pattern, s.p.a.ce pattern or slant pattern were. These techniques, common to doc.u.ment examiners, were completely unknown to this so-called expert.

Trenchant explained to him what these common handwriting tests were all about.

It was then established that he only did a letter comparison.

He claimed that the other tests or techniques, "were done by graphologists."

His att.i.tude made crystal clear that he considered graphologists to be a very dirty word. "I," he continued, with a conceited accent on the word, "am a doc.u.ment examiner." When Diana named her source of information and held up the book of a prominent doc.u.ment examiner, his reply was, "That person must come from a different viewpoint that I do."

"It appears that what you refer to as graphologists, in your profession, are much more thorough in their a.n.a.lysis of handwriting and printing than you are.

The author of this book makes a point of insisting on original, authenticated standards and doing several different types of measurements. The idea being that when they decide a doc.u.ment's author, it is based on several different tests.

"You did only a letter by letter comparison then. Every letter?"

"A majority of them."

It turned out not to be the case. Diana brought up letter after letter that the a.n.a.lyst had not found a match to. "S" was one of them.

Looking hastily through the so-called standards, Avery finally found one, but it was a printed capital "S" which he was saying was a match for a small case scripted "s" found at the end of a word.

For all that time and trouble, he discovered it in a signature purported to have been written by Diana twenty years ago!

This doc.u.ment also contained the writing of more than one person, and the signature itself was written by Diana's daughter.

Other discrepancies were brought out. T's that were not crossed, small i's with a backward slant, the written letter R which looked like a U. These and other examples of letters found in the 'suspicious' SmurFFs, were not found to be represented in twenty years worth of material allegedly copied from the files.

"It doesn't matter," Avery a.s.serted. "I mean it is entirely possible that the writer could have made an R like that even though I can't show you an example."

"You were given samples of what you were told was my handwriting that covered twenty to thirty years?"

"Yes."

"Is it not true that a person's handwriting may change due to injury or disease such as osteoporosis, rheumatism or arthritis?"

"I would agree that a person's handwriting can change over the years."

"Do you know of any statistical studies pertaining to the accuracy of handwriting a.n.a.lysis?"

"Accuracy?"

"Yes. Is it 50%, 75% or 100% accurate? Do you know of any studies made?"

"It is 100% accurate. It is allowed in the courts."

"Wait a minute. Are you saying the courts have made a study?"

"I don't know if such a study has been made. But the courts allow handwriting identification testimony to be given."

"That is d.a.m.n different than statistical tests of accuracy.

Tell me this. Courts allow juries to give verdicts of guilty or not guilty, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"That doesn't mean that they are always correct in their a.s.sessment, that just means that the court accepts it, right?"