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LIMA: Handwriting: Forensic and Seg Handwriting Analysis ) Page 2 of 2 * between samples, non-professionals tend to base their conclusions on similarities. We would do well to bear these results in mind when assessing published analyses. Another interesting recent development, and one that gives support to its objective testability, is the development of computer technologies for handwriting analysis (known as FISH), which are based on the fact that a unique set of algorithms can be generated by performing certain measurements on an individual's handwriting. Work on handwriting individuality has been done by The Center for Excellence in Document Analysis and Recognition (CEDAR), and their findings can be found on their website, where you can even try out a Handwriting Verification Test. CEDAR claim that their computerised analysis can correctly identify an individual's handwriting with 98% accuracy when there is an adequate sample. There has not been a consistent decision by judges over whether handwriting analysis meets the Daubert criteria. Some judges, such as in a 1999 ruling in Massachusetts (this and other case reports are found on www.forensic- evidence.com), have allowed testimony about (dis)similarity, but not conclusions about authorship. The Mass. judge noted that because an individual's handwriting varies each time he or she writes (unlike, say, a fingerprint), analysis depends on a judgement of similitude that is ultimately subjective. Although an expert's experience makes them better qualified than a lay-person to find similarities, this expertise did not give them any additional qualification to make the next step - identification of authorship. This was therefore left to the jury. The judge did not accept that studies such as Kam's have ‘established the validity of the field’. Other rulings, however, have given greater credence to recent studies of handwriting analysis and seen greater significance in the extensive professional training of expert analyts, and so many judges have accepted that the discipline meets the Daubert criteria. The expertise of those who have attempted to discredit handwriting analysis (eg Risinger, Denbeaux and Saks, none of whom are themselves trained in handwriting analysis) has also come into question. For example see a 1999 case report, and especially the 2002 'Prime', and the similar 2003 'Thornton' cases. A I I I A tt THE RELEVANCE OF FORENSIC ANALYSIS TO SCHOLARLY ANALYSIS Since the vast majority of work on handwriting analysis comes from the forensic field, it is clearly useful for anyone dealing with questioned handwriting to have some awareness of forensic work. However there are significant differences _ between the fields. For example, forensic document examination has considerably more resources available than does research in the humanities, and few of those who publish on handwriting in the humanities canbe considered professional analysts. The levels of rigour found in forensics could not possibly be sustained in the research environment of the humanities. More important still is the difference in the burden of proof. In the Anglo-American criminal justice system, proof must be established beyond reasonable doubt, but can we really expect a bibliographer, historian, or literary scholar be expected to meet the same criteria of proof? There is a great deal more at stake in a criminal case than in an academic article, so it is surely reasonable to expect more rigorous demands. No-one goes to prison on the basis of a badly argued academic article. ‘ : Scholarship in the humanities does not proceed on the basis of establishing its claims to the non-specialist beyond reasonable doubt; it is rather a matter of positing a viable hypothesis to a specialist audience, to whom it will be accepted in the absence of any viable alternative. This demands a lower level of proof. A classic example is the general (but not universal) acceptance of “Hand D" as Shakespeare's. This would not stand up in a law court, but with the support of other (also inconclusive) lines of evidence, and in the absence of a more convincing alternative, it has been sufficient to convince a majority of the scholarly community. It is reasonable to accept - cautiously - a scholarly identification of handwriting which depends on a balance of probability. However the scrutiny which forensic analysis has undergone should help us to maintain a healthy scepticism about handwriting identification, especially when a document is simply asserted as being in a given person's handwriting without the basis of this identification being made clear. http://www2.warwick.ac. uk/fac/arts/ren/publications/lima/handwriting/forensic/ 5/10/2005