Can estimates from forensic handwriting experts be trusted in court?

Forensic handwriting specialists are often called on to testify in court about the origins of a few lines of writing, or to determine whether a specific person has written a sentence. Scientific and forensic institutions also increasingly ask these experts to state the likelihood that a specific handwriting feature will occur in handwriting in the general public. Following a new study, researchers are now advising courts to take a cautionary approach when using experience-based likelihood ratios as evidence. The research, led by Kristy Martire of the University of New South Wales in Australia, is published in Springer’s Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.