Document Examiner

A document examiner (DE) is someone who studies scientifically the details and elements of documents in order to identify their source or to discover other facts concerning them. Document examiners are often referred to as handwriting experts, but today the work has outgrown this latter title and involves other problems than merely the examination of handwriting.

Opinion

In legal language, "opinion" is the document examiner's conclusion. Actually, in court the examiner not only expresses an opinion, but also demonstrates the reasons for arriving at the opinion.

Splicing

A term used by document examiners to denote the slight overlapping of two strokes after an interruption in the writing. It may be part of imitated, fraudulent signatures that are prepared one or two letters at a time.

Standard

A condensed and compact set of authentic specimens which, if adequate and proper, should contain a true cross section of the material from a known source. They are used by the document examiner as the basis for his identification or non-identification of the questioned document, as for example the known handwriting that served to establish who wrote the disputed document.