United States v.

Starzecpyzel is the original handwriting expertise reliability case

of the modem era. In that case, Roberta and Eileen Starzecpyzel were charged with

having stolen various works of art from Roberta's elderly (and now senile) aunt. They

claimed that the paintings were a gift made prior to the aunt's impairment. Part of the

evidence against them was the proposed testimony of a questioned document examiner,

Gus Lesnovich (ABFDE), who, after examining numerous authentic signatures of the

aunt on checks and other documents, concluded that the aunt's signatures on deeds of

gift for the artwork were forgeries. He did not claim to be able to identify either

defendant as the forger.

Judge Laurence McKenna of the United States District Court for the Southern

District of New York held an extensive hearing on the state of knowledge concerning the

reliability of such asserted expertise. Judge McKenna examined the claims of

handwriting identification expertise to scientific status at length, and rejected them. 10 3

Having done this, however, he concluded that since such experts are not practicing a

science within the meaning of Daubert, Daubert's validation requirements did not apply.

He then analogized such a proffered expert to a harbor pilot who learns to do something

dependably by experience.I°4 As to whether the prosecution's expert would be allowed

to testify to his conclusion that the signatures on the documents which were the subject

of the prosecution were forgeries, based on his examination of the numerous genuine

signatures of the putative victim, the 'court said that the defense had

presented no evidence, beyond the bald assertions [of its experts], that FDEs [forensic

document examiners] cannot reliably perform this task. Defendants have simply

challenged the FDE community to prove that this task can be done reliably. Such a

demonstration of proof, which may be appropriate for a scientific expert witness, has never

been imposed on "skilled" experts. 105

Judge McKenna then declared himself persuaded that the inferences as to genuineness of

the signature at issue in the case before him "can be performed with sufficient reliability

to merit admission."
It should be clear that Judge McKenna's bifurcated standard of reliability based on

the classification of proffered expertise as "science or non-science" with higher standards

applied to science, does not survive the Supreme Court's decision in Kumho Tire v.

Carmichael.

106

Finally, it should also be noted that Judge McKenna, anticipating the

particularization focus of Kumho Tire, emphasized that the only claimed skill he was

dealing with in his opinion was the skill of comparing a known signature with a

questioned signature to determine whether the questioned signature was really signed by

the person whose name was reflected, and not any other asserted skill or global claim of

expertise. This point has generally been lost on later courts and commentators, who have

tended to treat Starzecpyzel as if it dealt with global validity.