CHAPTER 32

When the hearing commenced again, the document examiner began his testimony. "I have examined the documents 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 passed 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 Anuse 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 document 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 document 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 analyst 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 analysis was as exact as fingerprints, he said, "It is as individual and as unique as fingerprints." Yet when asked if a number of different analysts looked at the same documents, 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, illustrating 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 document 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, space pattern or slant pattern were. These techniques, common to document 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 attitude 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 document examiner." When Diana named her source of information and held up the book of a prominent document 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 analysis 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 document'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 analyst 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 document 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 asserted. "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 analysis?" "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 damn 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 assessment, that just means that the court accepts it, right?"

"Yes."

"You are aware that the courts accept and allow testimony from any number of so-called experts in many different fields such as doctors, psychologists, engineers and natural scientist, just to name a few?

"Yes."

"This does not necessarily mean that all of these are one hundred percent correct in their testimony. It just means that the court accepts and allows it. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Sources of error can exist in handwriting analysis, can they not? There are a lot of judgment calls just like there is in most professions, isn't that correct?"

"Yes."

"So we really have no evidence that handwriting analysis is infallible. In fact, there are document examiners that are honest enough not to claim that."

"Well, they must be graphologists. We are on a different basis and it cannot be carried over to what we are doing."

Trenchant then named a well known document examiner and asked if Avery knew of him.

"Of course."

"Is he a graphologist?" "No."

"We talked to him about this situation and asked him questions. Unfortunately, it was much too expensive to bring him here to testify, however, he did agree to make an affidavit. I will read from it now. Quote.

`It is my opinion that the identification of handwriting is not as positive as fingerprint identification. While a document examiner may feel that his or her opinion is 100 percent positive, the facts are that the opinion is based on qualifications, training, experience and judgment, any of which may be limiting or otherwise subject to question. In addition, the known standards used in the comparison for the Belmont case may be tainted or under dispute.'"

"I don't agree." The document examiner said, visibly upset. Henry called a recess.

When the session opened again, Diana asked, "If you had your druthers, would you agree with other document examiners that original standards are preferable to copies?"

"Yes."

"You have said that you could not reach a conclusion from the first lot of so-called standards sent to you. If you had not been sent all that additional material going back 20 to 30 years, what would have been your conclusion?"

"I would have no conclusion."

"I am interested in your report of this note. The other unknown material you were sent was written on evaluation forms. I am speaking now of the note." Trenchant held up her copy.

Avery nodded and located his copy among the papers before him on the table.

"Now, you report that you cannot be sure of the authorship of this note which has quite a few words but you can be sure of the authorship of this evaluation form which has only two words."

Avery found the other document referred to and looked at them and then at his notes. "Yes," he agreed. "I could not be sure of the note because it contains block printing."

"So do these other SmurFFs that you say you have identified. There is some block printing on the note that we are talking about, but most of it is small case printing."

"Well, there were not enough individualistic examples in the note to be sure."

Henry wished that they had never let that note be sent to the document examiners. It had been nothing but trouble and was not related to the SmurFF forgery that Diana was charged with. That damn note which had come out of nowhere--reportedly given Lyle by his good friend but never verified, was not identified as being written by Diana by either of the two document examiner firms. The two examiners also differed on the identification of one of the `suspect' medical school SmurFFs. One was sure of Exhibit 2 but not of 3. The other was sure of 3 but not of 2. Henry recalled that now both document examiner witnesses agreed that the handwriting did change over the years. Jesus, if this woman keeps it up, she'll destroy all our evidence. Quickly, Henry stepped in and Amos Avery, the second document examiner that the Belmont administration had hired, was excused.