PURPOSE: To help you become more familiar with document examination.
1. Perform whatever legal and/or peer-reviewed research you need to perform in order to complete this assignment.
2. Write a one-to-two-page paper:
a. Describe two situations in which a document examiner may be prevented
from coming to a positive conclusion about a questioned document.
b. What are natural variations? How can they be useful for detecting
forgeries?
c. A warranted search of a victim’s apartment yields three pages of
exemplar handwriting samples written on ruled notebook paper with
blue ballpoint pen. The investigators would like to compare the
handwriting on these exemplars to a potential suicide note found with the
dead victim’s body written on unruled paper in pencil. Based on this
information, which characteristics of the handwriting can be used to
compare the exemplar documents and questioned document? Which
characteristics cannot be used and why?
