BY: PROF. ZOILO J. MACARANAS JR.

GENERAL DEFINITION TERMS

• Standard (Standard Document) – Are condensed and compact set of authentic

specimens which, if adequate and proper, should contain a cross section of the
material from a known source.
• “Standards” in questioned documents investigation, we mean those things
whose origins are known and can be proven and which can be legally used as
examples to compare with other matters in question. Usually a standard
consist of the known handwriting of a person such case, “standard” has the
same meaning as in understood by the word “specimen” of handwriting.
GENERAL DEFINITION TERMS

Exemplar. A term used by some document examiners and attorneys

to characterize known material. Standard is the older term.
Holographic Document. Any document completely written and
signed by one person; also known as a holograph. In a number of
jurisdictions a holographic will can be probated without anyone
having witnessed its execution.
 Reference Collection. Material compiled and organized by the
document examiner to assist him in answering special questions.
Reference collections of typewriting, check writing specimens, inks,
pens, pencils, and papers are frequently maintained.
WHAT IS DOCUMENT?

A document is any material which contains marks, signs, or symbols, which are visible,
partially visible or invisible that may presently or ultimately convey a meaning or message
to someone.
 
A document becomes a questioned document when it is being questioned as to its
originality, authenticity, authorship, source and genuineness and when it
is placed under scrutiny to determine whether or not it is disputed.
WHAT IS DOCUMENT?

• Latin word “documentum”, means “lesson, or example ( in Medieval Latin “instruction, or official paper”), OR
• French word “docere”, means to teach.
• According to Microsoft Encarta Reference Library (as a noun):
• 1. Formal piece of writing
• 2. Object containing information
• 3. Computer file
• As a verb, Microsoft Encarta gives the following definition:
• 1. Record information in or on media
• 2. Support a claim with evidence
WHAT IS A QUESTIONED DOCUMENT?

A questioned document is any document about which some issue has been raised or placed under
scrutiny. It is a document that has been questioned in whole or in part with respect to its
authenticity, identity, origin, or its relation among parts and to other things.

A questioned document is also defined as any signature, handwriting, typewriting, or other mark
whose source or authenticity is in dispute or doubtful. Letters, checks, driver licenses, contracts,
wills, voter registrations, passports, petitions, threatening letters, suicide notes, and lottery tickets
are the most common questioned documents, although marks on doors, walls, windows, or boards
would also be included by definition.
Questioned documents may be disputed or not. In other words, not all questioned documents are
disputed.
WHAT IS A QUESTIONED DOCUMENT EXAMINATION? 

Questioned Document Examination has been a profession, at least since

1870, and is frequently done in cases of forgery, counterfeiting, mail fraud,
kidnapping, con games, embezzlement, gambling, organized crime, white
collar crime, art crime, theft, robbery, arson, burglary, homicide, serial
murder, psychological profiling, and deviant sex crime.
SCIENTIFIC HANDWRITING EXAMINATION CONSISTS OF THREE ESSENTIAL
PHASES, NAMELY:

1. Recognition of characteristics (analysis)

2. Complete comparison of all characteristics (comparison)
3. Correct interpretation of characteristics (evaluation)
PROCESSES IN SCIENTIFIC METHOD OF EXAMINATION

Analysis- properties or characteristics are observed, measured, determined.

Comparison- properties or characteristics of the unknown items determined thru
analysis are compared with the familiar or recorded properties of known items.
Evaluation- similarities or dissimilarities in property or characteristics that have certain
value for identification are determined by their likelihood or occurrence.
The Examination involves, therefore, the recognition, complete comparison, and correct
interpretation or evaluation of the handwriting.
LEGAL BASIS OF DOCUMENT

• 1. In the case of People vs. Moreno, CA, 338 O.G. 119: any written document by which a
right is established or an obligation is extinguished.
• 2. In the case of People vs. Nillosquin, CA, 48 O.G> 4453: every deed or instrument
executed by person by which some disposition or agreement is proved, evidenced or
set forth.
• 3. In relation to Criminal Jurisprudence under the Best Evidence rule: any physical
embodiment of information or ideas; e.g. a letter, a contract, a receipt, a book of account,
a blue print, or an X-ray plate (Black’ Law Dictionary).
KINDS OF DOCUMENT

• 1. Public Document – notarized by a notary public or competent public

official with solemnities required by law. (Cacnio vs. Baens, 5 Phil. 742).
• Document issued or published for public knowledge.
• Document (such as court records, land deeds, and public registers) authenticated by a
public officer and made available for public reference and use. Statements by public
officers in such documents in their official capacity are admissible evidence of fact in
civil matters. Also called public record.
KINDS OF DOCUMENT

• 2. Official Document – issued by the government or its agents

or its officers having the authority to do so and the offices,
which in accordance with their creation, they are authorized to
issue and be issued in the performance of their duties.
KINDS OF DOCUMENT

• 3. Private Document – executed by a private person without the

intervention of a notary public or of any person legally authorized, by
which documents, some disposition or agreement is proved, evidenced or
set forth ( US vs Orera, 11 Phil. 596)
KINDS OF DOCUMENT

• 4. Commercial Document – executed in accordance with the Code of Commerce

or any Mercantile Law, containing disposition of commercial rights or
obligations.
• 5. Electronic Document (E-Document) – exist only in electronic form such as
data stored on a computer, network, back-up, archive or other storage media.
Examples of documents subjects to e-discovery are e-mails, instant message, e-
calendars, audio file, data on drawings and other types of digital data. (Governed
by RA 8792).
WRITINGS WHICH DO NOT CONSTITUTE DOCUMENTS –
BASED ON SOME SUPREME COURT RULINGS.

• 1. A draft of a Municipal payroll which is not yet approved by the proper

authority (People vs. Camacho, 44 Phil. 484).
• 2. Mere blank forms of official documents, the spaces of which are not
filled up (people vs. Santiago, CA, 48 O.G. 4558)
• 3. Pamphlets or books which do not evidence any disposition or
agreement are not documents but are mere merchandise (People vs. Agnis,
47 Phil. 945).
VARIOUS ASPECT OF QUESTIONED DOCUMENT
EXAMINATION
• 1. Examination of Handwriting (which includes signature) and hand
printing for purposes of determining their genuineness or source;
• 2. Miscellaneous aspects such as detection of alteration, decipherment of
erased writing, restoration of obliterated writing, determination of age
documents, identification of stamps, seal and other authenticating devices,
currency bills and coins and the like.
CLASSES OF QUESTIONED DOCUMENTS

1. Documents with questioned signatures.

2. Questioned documents alleged to have been containing fraudulent alterations.
3. Questioned or disputed holographic wills.
• A. Holographic Will – will entirely written in the handwriting of the testator.
• B. Notarial Will – signed by the testator acknowledge before a notary public
with 3 witnesses.
• disposition of property to take effect after the death of the testator
CLASSES OF QUESTIONED DOCUMENTS

4. Documents investigated on the question of typewriting.

• A. with a view of ascertaining their source
• B. with a view of ascertaining their date
• C. with a view of determining whether or not they contain fraudulent
alterations or substituted pages.
CLASSES OF QUESTIONED DOCUMENTS

 5. Questioned documents on issues of their age or date.

 6. Questioned documents on issues of materials used in their
production.
 7. Documents or writings investigated because it is alleged that they
identify some persons through handwriting.
a. anonymous and disputed letters, and
b. Superscriptions, registrations and miscellaneous writing.
CLASSES OF DISPUTED SIGNATURES

• Forged signature where no attempts has been made to make a copy or facsimile of the
genuine signature of the person purporting to have signed the document. This is
commonly referred to as simple forgery;
• Forged signature which closely resembles the genuine signature since they have been
produced by tracing process referred to as traced forgery;
• Forged signature which resembles the genuine signature written freehand, commonly
known as copied or simulated forgery;
CLASSES OF DISPUTED SIGNATURES

• Forged signature of fictitious person;

• Genuine signature that the writer is honestly unwilling to accept as genuine;
• Genuine signature obtained by trickery;
• Genuine signature deliberately written illegibly or in unusual manner to avoid
identification.
TECHNICAL TERMS

1. ADDITION - a scientific made a part of the document after its

original preparation may be referred to as addition.
2. CONCLUSION- a scientific conclusion result form relating observed
facts by logical, examiners conclusion, in legal term is referred to as <<
option >>.
TECHNICAL TERMS

• 3. DOCUMETNT EXAMINER. One who study 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 identification experts, but
today the work has outgrown his latter title and involves other problems than merely the
examination of hand writing.
TECHNICAL TERMS

• 4. ERASURE- The removal of writings, typewriting or printing, from a documents is an

erasure.
• It may be accomplished by either of two means. A chemical eradication in which the
writing is removed or bleached by chemical agents ( e.g. liquid ink eradicator); and an
abrasive erasure is where the writing is destroyed by rubbing with a rubber eraser or
scratching out with a knife or other sharp with implement.
TECHNICAL TERMS

• 5. EXAMINATION- It is the act of making a close and critical study of any material and
with questioned documents, it is the process necessary to discover the facts about them.
Various types are undertaken, including microscopic , visual photographic, chemical,
ultra violet and infra-red examination.
• a. EXPERT WITNESS. A legal term used to describe a witness who by reason of his
special training or experience is permitted to express an opinion regarding the
issue, or a certain aspect of the issue, which is involved in a court action. His purpose is
to interpret technical information in his particular specialty in order to assist the court in
administering justice. The document examiner testifies in court as an expert witness.
TECHNICAL TERMS

• 6. INSERTION OR
INTERLINEATION- The term
“insertion” and “interlineation” include
the addition of writing and other
material between lines or paragraphs or
the addition of whole page to a
document.
TECHNICAL TERMS

• 7. NON-IDENTIFICATION (Non-identification) – as used in this text it means that the source

or authorship of the compared questioned and standard specimens is different.
• a. OBLITERATION – the blotting out or shearing over the writing to make the
original invisible to as an addition.
• b. OPINION. In legal language, it refers to the document examiner’s conclusion.
Actually in Court, he not only expresses an opinion but demonstrates the reasons for arriving
at his opinion. Throughout this text, opinion and conclusion are used synonymously.
• Blotting (staining, discoloring, disfiguring)
• Shearing (cutting or cut off)
TECHNICAL TERMS

• 8. QUALIFICATION. The professional experience, education, and ability of a

document examiner. Before he is permitted to testify as an expert witness, the court must
rule that he is qualified in his field.
DIVISIONS OF QUESTIONED DOCUMENT
EXAMINATION
• A. Criminalistics Examination. This involves the detection of forgery , erasure,
alteration or obliteration of documents.
• Dr. Wilson Harrison, a note British Examiner of questioned documents said that an
intelligent police investigator can detect almost 75% of all forgeries by careful inspection
of a document with simple magnifiers and measuring tools.
DIVISIONS OF QUESTIONED DOCUMENT
EXAMINATION

• B. Handwriting Investigation/Analysis. This is more focused

in determining the author of writing. It is a more difficult
procedure and requires long study and experience.
INSTRUMENTS AND APPARATUSES NEEDED IN
QUESTIONED DOCUMENT EXAMINATION
THE STUDY OF HANDWRITING

• Basic Terms in Handwriting; The Different Kinds of

Handwriting Characteristics; The Development of
Handwriting; The Physiological Basis of Handwriting;
Recognition of Writing Characteristics.
BASIC TERMS IN HANDWRITING

• Writing is the result of a very complicated series of acts, being as a whole a combination of certain
forms, which are the very visible result of mental and muscular habits, acquired by long,
continued, painstaking effort.
• Handwriting is a visible effect of bodily movements, which is an almost unconscious expression
of certain ideas associated with script form.
• System of Writing is the combination of basic design of letters and writing movements as taught
in school.
• Natural Writing is any specimen of writing executed normally without any attempt to control or
alters its identifying habits and its usual quality of execution.
BASIC TERMS IN HANDWRITING

• Disguised Writing is a way of writing in which the writer deliberately tries to alters his usual
writing habits and its usual quality of execution.
• Cursive Writing is a style of writing in which the letters are for the most part joined together.
• Hand Lettering is any disconnected style of writing in which the letters are written separately.
• Holograph Documents is a document which is completely written and signed by one person.
BASIC TERMS IN HANDWRITING

• Signature is one’s name written by himself on a document as a sign of

acknowledgement.
• Writing Habit is any repeated element or detail that may serve to individualize writing.
• Significant Writing Habit is term applied to any characteristics of handwriting which is
sufficiently unique and well-fixed to serve as a fundamental point in the identification of
the writer.
• Characteristic is any property or mark which distinguishes and, in questioned document
examination, commonly refers to identifying details.