Science & Justice
Volume 48, Issue 3 , Pages 118-125, September 2008

A logical framework to ballpoint ink dating interpretation

Institut de Police Scientifique, Lausanne University, Batochime, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

Received 7 June 2007; accepted 20 October 2007. published online 26 November 2007.

Abstract 

Since its beginnings, the forensic field of questioned documents has been concerned with the dating of inks. Ink ageing processes follow complex paths. Disagreements about the feasibility of current methods have been voiced worldwide among the scientific and legal communities. This controversy has been the starting point of the present work. Its aim was that of evaluating the interpretation processes of such evidence. Subjective statistical data have been assigned from earlier works and illustrate the kind of data necessary to date ballpoint ink, and how to use it for this purpose. This work also suggests that the court and scientific requirements for standards of reliability are not yet fulfilled by actual ink dating methods for regulatory use in expert testimony.

Keywords: Questioned documents, Dating, Ink, Phenoxyethanol, Validation, Bayes

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PII: S1355-0306(07)00113-X

doi:10.1016/j.scijus.2007.10.009

Science & Justice
Volume 48, Issue 3 , Pages 118-125, September 2008

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