Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Disputed Handwriting - An exhaustive, valuable, and comprehensive work upon one of the most important subjects of to-day. With illustrations and expositions for the detection and study of forgery by handwriting of all kinds by Jerome B. Lavay
page 84 of 233 (36%)
of the expert who gives the opinion understands, and which they
without such an education, could not be expected to understand that
which the photographs show and the microscope makes visible is just as
likely to be misleading as otherwise.

An expert may testify as to the characteristics of the handwriting in
question; as to whether the writing is natural or feigned, or was or
was not written at the same time, with the same pen and ink, and by
the same person, and as to alterations or erasures therein; and as to
the age of the writing and obscurities therein; the result of his
examination of the writing under a magnifying glass; and to prove in
some cases the standard of comparison.

In the United States a witness may be asked to write on cross-examination,
but not in direct.

Before a paper can be accepted as a standard of comparison it must be
proved to be genuine to the satisfaction of the judge. His decision on
this question is final if supported by proper evidence. In some states
the question of genuineness is for the jury.

A party denying his handwriting may be asked on cross-examination, if
his signature to another instrument is genuine. This is the test which
may be successfully applied to ascertain if the signature is genuine.
A plaintiff, on one occasion, denied most positively that a receipt
produced was in his handwriting. It was thus worded, "Received the
Hole of the above." On being asked to write a sentence in which the
word "whole" was introduced, he took evident pains to disguise his
handwriting, but he adopted the phonetic style of spelling, and also
persisted in using the capital _H_.
DigitalOcean Referral Badge