The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-10-23
EXPERT TESTIMONY,

We doubt 1T there Is more arrant humbug connected with our judicial sys- tenn than is the average expert and especially is this true of the handwriting expert who is getting to be feature in so many court trials in various parts of the country This kind of witness is es- peciaIly familiar to all who have wit messed or read of a trial of almost any kind in the courts of New York. Hardly any kind of a suit can be conducted to termination in that city without an ex- pert of some kind being called in.
 We remember an actual occurrence in which an Alabamia lawyer figured, and which has never appeared in print, so far as we are aware, but it illustrates the unreliability of expert testimony in che case, at least. This lawyer, who shall be called Jack Is a man of many acquire ments one of which is unusual skill with
 a pen. Chancing to be in Atlanta when
 a will case of much importance was up,
 he naturally attended the trial and was an interested spectator. The whole mat ter turned on the signature of the dece- dent, and a handwriting expert was the
 most important witness. We do not now
 remember on which side this witness was | engaged but his testimony was of the most positive nature as to the forgery or
 alleged forgery of the signature. When court adjourned. 1t chanced that Jack and the expert met in the office of the hotel and the former determined to test the Tu ne to the expert, Jack asked him to sign hls name which the expert good-nat.lredly did. Then Jack took the pen and wrote the same name on similar piece O. rs per and handed both to the expert asking him if he could swear to his own sigma ture. This the man was totally unable to do, and if Jack had not thoroughly satisfied him to the contrary, the man who had sworn in the courtroom to the signature of another, and now was un- able to identify his own writing. would have been ready to swear that he had run against an expert forger.
 This true incident shows that positive swearing in the matter of handwriting is an exceedingly uncertain business, and
 that a man who claims to be able to identify the signature of another beyond doubt. takes large chances. Almost | every mans handwriting possesses some
 character or pecularity of it's own, but
 any ordinary signature is DO easily inn itated by a good penman that expert testimony of this kind is the most uncer- | tain of all evidence, and no man should | be convicted on it.
 The case of Roland B. Molineux, who has just been granted new trial in New York, after having lived for two or three years in the very shadow of the electric chair on a conviction for mur- der, is a noted example of the danger of convicting a man on this character of testimony. In this case poison was con- veyed in a bottle of bromide. the intended victim being a man, but Mrs. Adams took portion of the bromide and died from it's effects. The circumstances of the case are not material now but the case hinged on a specimen of writing. and Molineux was convicted on the tes- timony of one of thase experts and sen fenced to death. The father. being wealthy has kept the sentence from being carried out. and now the Supreme Court of New York has reversed the decision
 of the lower court and ordered a new
 trial. It is possible that Molineux was guilty of the crime for which he was con-
 victed. but the Supreme Court evidently
 had little confidence in the tesumony of
 the expert whose evidence convicted the
 man, and express their idea of it by their
 action. When person swears positively
 that certain signature was executed by
 a certain man, that witness fails to un-
 derstand the value or weight of an
 oath.