Howland will forgery trial

The Case vs Robinson. Mandell, better known as Howland Will Case or Howland Will Forgery Trial, was negotiated from 1866 to 1868 before the Federal District Court for Massachusetts and became one of the most spectacular and öffentlichkeitswirksamsten trial of American legal history of his time.

Subject and course

Was negotiating the expenses amounted to $ 2,145,029 estate of Sylvia Ann Howland. Their only blood-related heiress, Henrietta Howland Robinson, called " Hetty ," challenged the testament of their aunt and presented a second, later allegedly authored Testament, the awarding her not just half, but the totality of the heritage minus $ 100,000. To prove the authenticity of this second covenant, the lawyers Robinsons invited a number of prominent experts in court, including the naturalist Louis Agassiz, the physician and writer Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Quincy Adams II, the grandson of the sixth President of the United States. The other side presented itself a series of heavyweight witnesses to prove the second Testament as a forgery, so a number of bank directors, photographers Albert Southworth and especially the mathematician Benjamin Peirce and Charles Sanders Peirce.

Hetty Robinson was accused that she had traced the signature on the second Testament - the signature was identical to a second document, which was present in all the defense lines and angles. The Peirce calculated that the probability of two completely identical signatures from the same hand at about 1: is to be set 2.666 × 1021. The process is responsible for the scientific and legal history as primarily of interest because here were incorporated for the first time in statistical methods of proof.

After two years, the process was stopped because of a procedural error.