QUESTIONED DOCUMENTS EXPERT REPORTS

Linda L. Mitchell

Linda Mitchell is a Certified Forensic Document Examiner and Handwriting Expert. The work of a document examiner most often involves the identification or authentication of handwriting; but, there are many other aspects of the profession that can be applied to a document in question. Deciphering documents containing indented writings, and obliterated content and insertions of additional data are just a few examples that can be part of a complex multiple–page document examination. Linda is fully capable of performing all such examinations.

Linda’s laboratory includes up–to–date equipment and a full library of reference resources. She provides informative presentations about most aspects of the field document examination for small or large audiences, and is a competent expert witness confirmed in San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino Superior Court as well as Federal Bankruptcy Court. Her current professional research, was published in the Journal of the American Society of Forensic Document Examiners, June 2016, is entitled, A Blind Study of the Reliability of Hand Printing Identification by the Forensic Document Examiner. She initiated this study in response to a 2013 ruling by the 7th District Court disallowing testimony because of the lack of meaningful research on the subject. Linda is a contributing author to the soon-to-be published textbook, Forensic Document Examination in the 21st Century and has also been selected by the Office of the Secretary of State as the Voter Fraud Examiner for the 2016 election year through 2020.

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Ms. Mitchell completed her formal apprenticeship in questioned document examination under the direct supervision of Manny Gonzales, who has more than 40 years of professional experience involving most aspects of forensic document examination. (Mr. Gonzales’ CV is available upon request.) Her training conformed to SWGDOG.org guidelines and the Southwestern Association of Forensic Document Examiners (SWAFDE) Training Guidelines (2006) which included training from FBI and Secret Service materials.

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