CHAPTER 16

After the formalities of swearing in were completed, the `suspect' evaluations were identified as being contained in packets called exhibit 3 and 4 by the chair and Diana was asked if she wrote them.

Following her denial, Henry asked her why `they' would suggest that she had. She answered that she had no idea. Damn her, thought Henry. She won't rise to the bait.

Next, the chair turned to exhibit 5, which he identified as some of the standards used by the document examiners. Apparently, he had heard and taken note when Trenchant had made a point of the fact that the so-called standards were copies.

"One is an original, here on top--the rest are copies." Then he continued, obliquely, asking, "have you seen these before?"

"Since these exhibits were passed around and discussed yesterday," Trenchant answered, "I have seen something that appears like this.

"If you are asking if I wrote them, the answer is that I couldn't say. The one original in the packet looks like my signature but there is no date on it. I don't know when it was written and do not recall writing it.

"These others show dates of a long time ago. We're in the late eighties now and these are dated '61, '69. . ."

"We have some dated more current that the document examiners used.

I can send over to Mark's office for them."

"Oh, you have additional evidence that I was not given before the hearing? Is that correct?"

"No. Well, I mean no one has looked at it. No one on this committee either. This was handled between Mark and the document examiners. I will call Mark right now and have him bring them over."

Henry left the hearing room and headed up the stairs to the witness waiting room where Mark was standing by for just such emergencies. You'd think we were the ones on trial, he grumbled to himself. Why does she persist in this inane manner when I've got everything so well planned out? "Mark, Trenchant's called us on the remaining standards that you sent but that we decided not to include in the material we gave her. Please go

and get them and bring them to the hearing room as soon as possible."

As the men descended the stairs, Mark to leave and Henry to return to the hearing, Mark asked, "how did she find out about them, Henry?"

"She was making such a fuss about all the standards having dates so far back that she couldn't identify them and the panel apparently thinks this is a valid reason why she won't identify them. I had to say the document examiners had more recent samples of her handwriting or. . ." Henry broke off quickly as Helen came out of the room used by Diana's witnesses at the foot of the stairs.

"Hi, guys," greeted Helen placidly. "How's it going? Are you on a break?"

Spare me these emancipated females, thought Henry as he angrily ignored her, waived goodbye to Mark and reentered the hearing room.

Congenial old Mark, badly in need of a conversation fix after Ian had left, approached Helen with a wide smile. "No," he said to her, "Henry just had to step out for a minute so he could tell me something he needed me to get for him.

"I'm on the way over to the admin building right now. You must be one of the witness for Diana. Sure hope this isn't too traumatic for you all. It really is a terrible thing to have happen at Belmont and I'm sure that as much as you all must like Diana and want to help her that as soon as you understand the preponderance of evidence against her, you'll decide. . ." Strange woman, he thought, as Helen went back into the waiting room and firmly closed the door. Oh well, I might as well go over and get that stuff for Henry.

Inside the hearing room, Henry had ruled that they would go ahead for now and introduce the material when it was brought over.

Continuing her challenge, Diana said, "I repeat again, this is evidence, this is material that was sent to the document examiners that I have not seen. Is that correct? Even though you and Lyle have both assured me that I was given all the evidence?"

"Well, that only meant that you had all the material sent at that time. This is additional information that the document examiners brought with them."

"Material that I was not privy to and had no opportunity to question the document examiners on! I consider this most unfair."

Anuse smirked.

"Well," Henry replied, "you will see it presently so that's all right. The committee may now ask additional questions."

Esther wanted to know what was going on in the department. "We have heard from Lyle, Ian and Randy. What is your perception?"

Damn the woman, fumed Henry. I purposely warned her against asking that kind of question. He turned his full attention on Diana's answer.

"I will confirm first that there were problems. When I was in the course, I objected to using published material without permission from the publisher and credit to the author.

"I also refused to allow them to use the manual I had written and copyrighted, which they wanted to present to the students as their own after they had added to it.

"I was ordered to do this by Lyle and when I refused, I was threatened with a lawsuit and then told that they would take what they wanted anyway.

"When I first wrote the manual, I offered it free of charge to Ian for the course. He was delighted and most grateful that I had undertaken the project. The manual was well accepted by the students and was used in the course for two years.

"I had no objection to it being used the next year-- the year I was not in the course. But, I would not allow them to revise it or steal it."

Diana Trenchant went on to explain that her manual was strictly concerned with basic radiology information; information that would prepare students for the more demanding courses in radiology therapy that they would encounter the next year.

"One year, I audited those courses so that when I wrote the manual, I could make sure that students would be well prepared for them.

"There was never any question that I supported the presentation of experimental material in addition to the basics contained in the manual. Actually what they proposed adding to the course was not new. We have

been doing this for several years, before Randy came to NERD, using legitimate reference material obtained from publishers."

"Was there any connection between all this and the alleged fictitious SmurFFs?" pursued Esther.

"It does seem rather strange to me that they suddenly appeared at the time Ian and Randy were facing copyright infringement charges-- according to Ian's testimony.

Diana continued by telling the committee that there had been no problems until Randy had come into the course. When she worked with Ian, things went fine. They conferred and cooperated with each other. Ian's evaluations gradually got better.

"After Randy came in, I was left out of the loop. He, Ian and Lyle made decisions and I was not informed. For example, two years ago, Randy was made co-director of the course with Ian. I was not told about it."

The door to the hearing room opened and Mark's head floated through the opening. Ah good, thought Henry, just the kind of distraction I need to stop this line of questioning. "We will now introduce this material," he said as he got up to take the large brown envelope Mark produced in the doorway. "The dates on these documents, used as standards by the document examiners, are more recent." Smugly, he handed copies of these documents to each of the panel members and then to Diana, keeping one set for himself.

"These documents appear to be copies from personnel files," observed Diana, looking at the chair for confirmation.

"Yes," Henry confirmed. "They were taken from your personnel file and sent by the university attorney to use as standards."

"Then I would like to see the release I signed so that this material could be removed from my file," demanded Trenchant.

"Release? No release was necessary," Henry looked puzzled and frowned with annoyance.

"Mr. Chairman, you have made note several times that this termination hearing is justified by a certain paragraph in the faculty handbook," Diana replied firmly. "In that same handbook, there is a paragraph stating that no

material shall be removed from a faculty person's file without the permission of that person. If you have a handbook here, I will find the exact wording and read it to you."

"Oh, I know what you are referring to and that does not apply in this case," Henry ruled quickly and then turned to the panel and said, "We must get on with it. Are these your handwriting?"

"I don't know. These are copies. Copies are suspicious." Anuse interjected demanding to know why.

Diana explained to him that she had done a great deal of research, since she had first been charged, into document examination. Accomplished document examiners insist on original, authentic standards. Except for a couple, all of these so-called standards are copies. In addition, as you will recall from her answer to the questions I asked her, the examiner you engaged admitted that she did not know of her own knowledge that I had written the standards she used.

"A competent examiner would have the person in question write the standards in his or her presence. That way the analyst is unbiased, and can swear that the standards are authentic.

"I also learned that one should never identify copies as one's writing because copies may be altered and recopied so the alterations do not show."

"Now these came from the administration and you certainly can't think that any alteration went on," scoffed Anuse.

"I certainly can think it's possible. Just as I know it's possible to forge handwriting so even the experts cannot tell."

"No, that is incorrect. The analysts testified that she could tell forgeries."

"She also testified that I had written these `suspect' evaluations but admitted that she had not authenticated the standards used nor insisted on original standards.

"As far as believing that tampering could be done, I remind you that one of these `suspect' documents was tampered with and Lyle admitted doing it."

"What!" blurted Henry, "what. . ."

"This one here." The accused held up the evaluation that had a three word printed comment on the course. Stapled to it was a note reading,

`Lyle, have a happy Christmas, Diana'.

"This was given the document examiners as `suspect' evaluation #6, yet clearly Lyle knew that he had prejudiced it by putting six additional words on it that he knew I had written. This is original writing on Christmas paper and not part of this evaluation, yet from the report the examiners made, it was treated as part of a `suspect' document."

Henry quickly told Janet that she could stop taking notes while the committee huddled off the record. Feverishly, he opened the analyst report and scanned the relevant paragraph. After a few moments, Henry and Frank Anuse exchanged glances. Anuse nodded and Henry told Janet they were back on record. Immediately, Anuse sarcastically claimed that he didn't under stand what all the fuss was about. He could see no tampering.

Trenchant explained again. "It is obvious. A known standard is affixed to an unknown document. It is made a part of that unknown document."

Anuse seemed to deliberately misunderstand. He continued this over and over, taking different tacks but essentially he was bent on wearing Diana down.

Careful, thought Henry. A court would say Anuse was badgering the witness. Henry knew this was not proper questioning, it was arguing, but he let it continue.

"Oh," Anuse would say in an annoying, baiting way, "it was not altered since Lyle had stapled it there so it wouldn't get lost." and "I don't understand where you have a problem with this."

After several minutes of this, he dismissed the whole complaint. Scathingly, he said that it didn't matter since the whole document had been written by Trenchant anyway. The document analyst had said so.

"Yes they had," Diana agreed. "Despite the fact that there were three PRINTED words on the SmurFF. The WRITING they identified was only on the slip of paper that Lyle had attached.

The panel was silent. Trenchant addressed them. "When I was first charged with writing these critiques, I spoke to a few professional document examiners. Right off, I discovered that I could not afford to hire

one to do an unbiased analysis. However, they usually were willing to answer general questions on the phone for a small consulting fee.

"In talking with them and reading the material they suggested to me, I came away with some interesting information. None that I talked to felt they were infallible or claimed that handwriting was as unique as fingerprints, but they enjoyed the benefits of that illusion.

"Both tape recordings and polygraph (lie detector) evidence is not allowed in courts. The so-called expert testimony of doctors, psychiatrists, as well as various technical expertise such as fingerprint and document analysis is. Deus ex machina is evidently not looked highly upon by judges, possibly because they allow no other gods before them in their courtrooms.

"Court certification of a document examiner means that the court has accepted their training and experience. This is seldom checked and is fairly loosely defined by the profession itself. It does not indicate a perfect batting average for the examiner.

"Most analysts that I contacted said that if they were hired in this case, they would want to examine all of the critiques-- not just the handful picked out by NERD. There is always the chance of there being another individual with similar handwriting in that many samples.

"They admitted there were people capable of forging the handwriting of another person. They directed me to check out the literature on the Hitler Diaries and the more recent White Salamander Papers. What these two cases had in common was that the best, most expert document examiners in the world were fooled. Because these were sensational cases, they were highly publicized. Most forgeries get little or no attention from the media but the fact remains that a good forger can fool highly qualified document examiners.

"Oh, yes. There is one more thing I want to question here since most of the documents you have listed as so-called standards are copies. These copies are mostly memos addressed to people in the department. If they are authentic, why aren't they originals? If I had written and sent those, it would have been the originals-- if I'd made a copy it would have been kept for my files."

My God, Henry screamed to himself, why do I let her go on with this? Well, of course, it's because those women are listening and look interested so I don't dare cut her own testimony off too often. They were not happy with the way Frank was badgering her and I didn't want to alienate them any further. Aloud, he said, "Does the panel have any more questions?" Getting no response, the chair called a short recess.

When Diana entered the waiting room, her witnesses gathered around, full of support and questions. "All in all, it went pretty well," she told them. "The real victory was getting out of there without throttling Frank Anuse. He asks question after question always discounting your answer. He doesn't come right out and say you're lying but it is implied in his manner.

"The rest of the panel aren't bad. Esther gets a little mixed up in what she wants to say at times and is a bit hard to understand, but she appears to be trying to be fair. I think the other two women on the panel are more sympathetic toward me now.

"It isn't much fun, but you shouldn't be in there very long, so that's some compensation."

"They were at you for a long time," Sarah's voice quavered ever so slightly.

"Yes, but I'm their designated criminal. I really don't think they will treat you badly, but if they do, get up and walk out. I mean that, it goes for all of you," Trenchant said firmly.

"There's the summons. Go in there and give 'em hell, Andrea. It's party time," said Helen, patting them both on the back as they left for the hearing room.