Handwriting Analysis, Forgery, and Counterfeiting Notes

Chapter 10: Handwriting Analysis, Forgery, and Counterfeiting

Overview

This chapter covers handwriting analysis, forgery, and counterfeiting, including handwriting characteristics, forgery detection, and security features of currency.

Handwriting Analysis

Handwriting Characteristics

There are 12 types of handwriting characteristics that can be analyzed in a document. Handwriting traits can be categorized into specific line traits, cursive and printed letter traits, and pen habits.

Types of Handwriting Traits

There are three main categories of handwriting traits:

1. Specific Line Trait

   • Spacing: The spacing between letters can be erratic, equally spaced, or inconsistent.

   • Size consistency: The ratio of height to width is consistent or inconsistent.

   • Continuous: The writing flow is continuous, or the writer lifts the pen.

   • Connecting Lettering: Letters are connected and complete, or not connected, and part of the letter is missing.

2. Cursive and Printed Letter Traits

   • Cursive and printed letters: Letters are cursive, printed, or both.

   • Slant: If there is a slant, it is left, right, or variable.

   • Line habits: Letters are on or below the line.

   • Fancy curls or loops: There are or are not fancy curls.

3. Pen Habits

   • Pressure: Pressure is equal or not when applied to upward and downward strokes.

   • Placement of crosses on t's and dots on i's: These are correct or misplaced.

Forensic Document Examiners (FDEs)

Specially trained personnel who scientifically analyze handwriting and other document features. They examine written notes and compare various traits.

Graphologist

A person who studies the personality of the writer based on handwriting samples, but this is not a scientific analysis.

Goal of Forensic Handwriting Analysis

The primary goal is to examine and compare questioned documents with known material to identify the author.

Field Investigations

Include handwriting, computer printouts, commercial printing, paper and ink analysis, and threatening, ransom, or suicide notes.

Historical Context

• 1930s: Handwriting analysis played a role in the Charles Lindbergh child kidnapping case.

• 1999: The US Court of Appeals determined that handwriting analysis qualifies as a form of expert testimony.

Admissibility in Court

Scientifically accepted guidelines must be followed for handwriting analysis to be admissible in court. Organizations like Scotland Yard, the FBI, and the Secret Service use handwriting analysis.

Natural Variation

Everyone's handwriting exhibits natural variation based on factors like the writing instrument, mood, age, and how hurried the person is. Despite variation, each person has a unique handwriting style, formed subconsciously from habit.

Handwriting Comparison

The determination of authorship involves comparing similarities and differences between a questioned document and a known sample (exemplar).

1. Two writings came from one person if:

   • Their similarities are unique.

   • No unexplainable differences are found.

2. Examine the questionable document for detectable traits and record them.

3. Obtain a known sample of the suspect’s writing (an exemplar).

4. Compare and draw conclusions about the authorship of the questioned document.

Exemplars

Best examples include letters, diaries, greeting cards, and personal notes. It's helpful if the exemplar contains some of the same words/phrases as the questioned document.

Minimizing Conscious Writing for Exemplars

To minimize conscious writing for exemplars:

• Don’t show the suspect the document in question.

• Don’t give the suspect instructions on punctuation or spelling.

• Use similar pen and paper to the questioned document.

Technology in Handwriting Analysis

• Biometric Signature Pads: 'Learns' to recognize how a person signs, evaluating speed, pressure, and rhythm. Recognizes forgeries by detecting even slight differences.

• Computerized Analysis: Compares handwriting samples objectively with samples stored in databases.

• Infrared Spectroscopy: Determines ink type.

Tools for Document Analysis

1. Infrared and Ultraviolet (UV) Light Sources

   • Purpose: To reveal erased text, different inks, or hidden writing

   • Tool: Forensic light sources

   • Some inks fluoresce or absorb differently under UV or IR light, revealing alterations.

2. Magnifying Glass or Microscope

   • Purpose: To examine pen strokes, pressure, and erasure marks in fine detail.

3. Electrostatic Detection Apparatus (ESDA)

   • Purpose: To detect indented writing

4. Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC)

   • Purpose: To analyze ink composition and identify if different inks were used.

5. Digital Image Enhancement Software

   • Purpose: To enhance or reveal obscured or faint writing through contrast, brightness, and filtering adjustments.

Evidence in the Courtroom

• The expert explains how comparisons were made.

• Cross-examination by the defense attorney may follow.

Shortcomings in Analysis

• Are the base documents real or fake?

• Did mood, age, or fatigue impact the handwriting?

• Did experts miss any details?

Forgery and Fraudulence

Forgery

Forged documents include checks, employment records, legal agreements, licenses, and wills.

Fraudulence

Forgery for material gain.

Check Forgery

Can include:

• Ordering another’s checks from a deposit slip.

• Altering a check.

• Intercepting another’s check, altering, and cashing it.

• Creating a check from scratch.

Check Fraud Statistics

Americans write 70 billion checks per year – approximately $27$ million in illegitimate checks are cashed each day.

Preventing Check Forgery

• Chemically sensitive paper

• Large font size (requires more ink, making alterations more difficult)

• High-resolution borders that are difficult to copy

• Multiple color patterns

• Embedded fibers that glow under different light

• Use chemical wash detection systems that change color when a check is altered

Literary Forgery

Forgery of a piece of writing, such as a historic letter or manuscript.

Characteristics of Best Forgeries

• Duplicate the materials found in the original

  • Old paper

  • Chemically treated materials to fake an older look

  • Inks mixed from substances that would have been used at the time

  • Watermarks that add the appearance of age

  • Tools and styles that would have been popular at the time

Counterfeiting

Counterfeiting Definition

When false documents or other items are copied for the purpose of deception.

Scope

A criminal activity existing since antiquity.

Commonly Forged Items

• Currency

• Traveler’s checks

• Food stamps

• Certain bonds

• Postage stamps

Security Features of Currency

• Security features are added to paper currency that scanning cannot reproduce.

• Regular printer paper contains starch; paper currency contains rag fiber instead of starch.

Redesigning Currency

Currency is always being redesigned to make it more difficult to counterfeit.

New Bill Introduction Dates

• $20$ – October 9, 2003

• $50$ – September 28, 2004

• $10$ – March 2, 2006

• $5$ – Early 2008

New Security Features

1. Portrait stands out and appears raised off the paper.

2. Contains clear red and blue fibers woven throughout the bill.

3. Has clear, distinct border edges.

4. Treasury seal is shown with clear, sharp saw-tooth points.

5. The watermark appears on the right side of the bill in the light.

6. The security thread is evident—a thin embedded vertical strip with the denomination of the bill printed in it.

7. There is minute printing on the security threads, as well as around the portrait.

8. When the bill is tilted, the number in the lower right-hand corner makes a color shift from copper to green.

Conclusion

• Handwriting analysis compares questioned documents with exemplars to establish authorship.

• Aspects of a person’s handwriting style can be analyzed to ascertain authenticity.

• Many new features of paper currency help prevent counterfeiting.

• Technological advances have enhanced chances of detecting forged documents.