Questioned document examination

Its primary purpose is to provide evidence about a suspicious or questionable document using scientific processes and methods.

Even in places where the more general meaning is common, such as North America or Australia, there are many individuals who have specialized training only in relatively limited areas.

Common criminal charges involved in a document examination case fall into the "white-collar crime" category.

For several years, the American Society for Testing and Materials, International (ASTM) published standards for many methods and procedures used by FDEs.

These guides were under the jurisdiction of ASTM Committee E30 on Forensic Sciences and the direct responsibility of Subcommittee E30.02 on Questioned Documents.

For example, a questioned document may be a sheet of paper bearing handwriting or mechanically-produced text such as a ransom note, a forged cheque, or a business contract.

This includes, for example, graffiti on a wall, stamp impressions on meat products, and covert markings hidden in a written letter.

A person who desires to enter a career of forensic document examination must possess certain traits and abilities.

To this end, the aspirant must successfully complete: Desirable skills also include knowledge of paper, ink, printing processes, and handwriting.

[7] Nonetheless, the traditional approach in the discipline of forensic document examination is best expressed as follows: "When any two items possess a combination of independent discriminating elements (characteristics) that are similar and/or correspond in their relationships to one another, of such number and significance as to preclude the possibility of their occurrence by pure coincidence, and there are no inexplicable disparities, it may be concluded that they are the same in nature or are related to a common source (the principle of identification).

"[8]: 84 The evaluation of such characteristics is now predominantly subjective though efforts to meaningfully quantify this type of information are ongoing.

To the contrary, scientific testing has shown that professional document examiners (as a group) out-perform lay-people when comparing handwriting or signatures to assess authorship.

It follows that The examination of handwriting to assess potential authorship proceeds from the above principle of identification by applying it to a comparison of samples of handwritten material.

The weight or significance of the similarity or difference of each element must then be considered and the explanation(s) for them proposed.The authors note further that "This process underlies the identification of any matter, person, or thing, by any witness, whether technical, forensic, or not."

An alternative guide for the examination of handwriting and signatures has been developed by the Forensic Expertise Profiling Laboratory (School of Human Biosciences, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia).

[13] Aside from E2290 mentioned above, many standard guides pertaining to the examination of questioned documents were published by ASTM International.

Either way, in the present context, it refers to the assessment of an examiner's competency and qualifications by an independent (third-party) organization of professionals.