Spectrum Forensic International, LLC

Document Examination Services

Forensic Document Examination

Forensic Document Examination or Questioned Document Examination is the scientific study, analysis and comparison of questioned or disputed handwritings or documents for authentication or legal purposes. The examination is conducted by a document examiner whose findings may be presented as testimony in a court of law.

A qualified handwriting or document expert is one who has been specially trained in the analysis and comparison of questioned documents and whose competency and experience is sufficient to be court-qualified to testify in a court of law.

Forgery is a legal term that pertains not only to signing the name or handwriting of another, but also implies the intent to defraud.  A document examiner is a forensic expert who conducts a scientific examination usually involving a comparative analysis of the questioned signature with known comparison standards.  An impartial document examiner does not examine or investigate motive.

In most signature examination cases, several comparison standards from around the same time period as the questioned signature need to be collected.  It is also important for the document examiner to examine original documents as photocopies do not reproduce all elements of handwriting and are subject to alteration.  It is not uncommon for originals to disappear in some cases, but sometimes photocopies may leave evidence of alteration. 

Probate documents such as wills are frequently presented as questioned documents.  These types of documents may be subject to forged or simulated signatures and/or initials, page substitutions, and alterations.  Page substitutions can sometimes be detected by examining elements such as print process, paper and watermarks. 

Medical records are sometimes altered by the addition of data between lines or on new pages.  Microscopic examination of line crossings to determine line sequence is sometimes used to determine which entry was written first.  Infrared can also be utilized to examine alterations or differences in ink.