Science and the Criminal

by C. Ainsworth Mitchell

The Judge.—Do you believe it to be her hand?

Mr. Stout.—No, I don’t believe it; because it don’t suit her character.

The judge in his summing up remarked that if the jury believed that the letters were in the handwriting of Sarah Stout there was evidence to show that although she was a virtuous woman a distemper might have turned her brains, and discomposed her mind.

The history of the admission of expert evidence on handwriting in this country is a curious one, and shows that opinion has long been divided as to its value.

In a trial that took place in 1836 a bank inspector was put in the box to give an opinion as to the genuineness of a signature and the judge refused to admit this as evidence. The point was carried to the Court of Appeal, but was still left unsettled, an equal number of judges being for and against the admissibility of such evidence.

Mr. Justice Wills, in his standard work on Circumstantial Evidence, relates that Lord Denman pronounced that evidence as to handwriting might be regarded as an expunged chapter in the book of evidence. In spite of this dictum, however, the evidence of the handwriting expert was made legal in Civil Cases in 1854, and eleven years later it was also legalised in Criminal law.

Long before a witness was permitted in this country to give his opinion upon writing which he had not actually seen written, or with the author of which he was unacquainted, expert evidence of this kind was admitted in the laws of different countries in Europe and in many of the American States.

Handwriting Experts.

A good deal has been heard of late of the shortcomings of the handwriting expert, and owing to a mistaken idea as to the nature of his evidence, the view has been strongly expressed that such evidence should no longer be admissible.

The present feeling against evidence on handwriting is partly due to an exaggerated importance having frequently been attached to the conclusions of the expert, so that as soon as it could be shown that he had made a mistake, no further trust was to be placed in his opinion; and partly to the dogmatic attitude of certain experts in the past.