The Howland will forgery trial (''Robinson v. Mandell'') was a

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

court case in 1868 where businesswoman Henrietta "Hetty" Howland Robinson, who would later become the richest woman in America, contested the validity of the

will Will may refer to: Common meanings * Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death * Will (philosophy), or willpower * Will (sociology) * Will, volition (psychology) * Will, a modal verb - see Shall and will ...

of her aunt, Sylvia Ann Howland. According to Howland's will, half of her $2 million estate () would go to various charities and entities, the rest would be in a trust for Robinson. Robinson challenged the will's validity by producing an earlier will that left the entire estate to Hetty, and which included a clause invalidating any subsequent wills. The case was ultimately decided against Robinson after the court ruled that the clause invalidating future wills and Sylvia's signature to it were

forgeries Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally refers to the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud anyone (other than themself). Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be forbidd ...

.''Robinson v. Mandell,'' 20 F. Cas. 1027 (C.C.D. Mass. 1868) (No. 11,959) It is famous for the

forensic Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to Criminal law, criminal and Civil law (legal system), civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standard ...

use of

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

Benjamin Peirce Benjamin Peirce (; April 4, 1809 – October 6, 1880) was an American mathematician who taught at Harvard University for approximately 50 years. He made contributions to celestial mechanics, statistics, number theory, algebra, and the philoso ...

as an

expert witness An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as ...

History

Sylvia Ann Howland died in 1865, leaving roughly half her fortune of some 2 million

dollars Dollar is the name of more than 20 currencies. They include the Australian dollar, Brunei dollar, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Jamaican dollar, Liberian dollar, Namibian dollar, New Taiwan dollar, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, Un ...

() to various legatees, with the residue to be held in

trust Trust often refers to: * Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality It may also refer to: Business and law * Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another * Trust (bus ...

for the benefit of Robinson, Howland's niece. The remaining principal was to be distributed to various beneficiaries on Robinson's death. Robinson produced an earlier will, leaving her the whole estate outright. To the will was attached a second and separate page, putatively seeking to invalidate any subsequent wills. Howland's

executor An executor is someone who is responsible for executing, or following through on, an assigned task or duty. The feminine form, executrix, may sometimes be used. Overview An executor is a legal term referring to a person named by the maker of a ...

, Thomas Mandell, rejected Robinson's claim, insisting that the second page was a forgery, and Robinson sued. In the ensuing case of ''Robinson v. Mandell'',

Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...

testified that he had made pairwise comparisons of 42 examples of Howland's signature, overlaying them and counting the number of downstrokes that overlapped. Each signature featured 30 downstrokes and he concluded that, on average, 6 of the 30 overlapped, 1 in 5.

, Charles' father, showed that the number of overlapping downstrokes between two signatures also closely followed the

binomial distribution In probability theory and statistics, the binomial distribution with parameters ''n'' and ''p'' is the discrete probability distribution of the number of successes in a sequence of ''n'' independent experiments, each asking a yes–no quest ...

, the expected distribution if each downstroke was an independent event. When the admittedly genuine signature on the first page of the contested will was compared with that on the second, all 30 downstrokes coincided, suggesting that the second signature was a tracing of the first. Benjamin Peirce then took the stand and asserted that, given the independence of each downstroke, the

probability Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and ...

that all 30 downstrokes should coincide in two genuine signatures was

\textstyle\frac

. That is one in 2,666,000,000,000,000,000,000, in the

order of magnitude An order of magnitude is an approximation of the logarithm of a value relative to some contextually understood reference value, usually 10, interpreted as the base of the logarithm and the representative of values of magnitude one. Logarithmic dis ...

of sextillions. He went on to observe:

So vast improbability is practically an impossibility. Such evanescent shadows of probability cannot belong to actual life. They are unimaginably less than those least things which the law cares not for. ... The coincidence which has occurred here must have had its origin in an intention to produce it. It is utterly repugnant to sound reason to attribute this coincidence to any cause but design.

The court ruled that Robinson's testimony in support of Howland's signature was inadmissible as she was a party to the will, thus having a

conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...

. The statistical evidence was not called upon in judgment. The case is one of a series of attempts to introduce mathematical reasoning into the courts. '' People v. Collins'' is a more recent example.

Citations

General bibliography

* Eggleston, Richard (1983). ''Evidence, Proof and Probability'', * ''Robinson v. Mandell'', 20 ''F. Cas.'' 1027 (C.C.D. Mass. 1868) (No. 11,959) * Menand, L. (2002). '' The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America'', , pp. 163–176 * Meier, P. & Zabell, S. (1980). "Benjamin Peirce and the Howland Will", ''Journal of the American Statistical Association'', vol. 75, p. 497 * "The Howland Will Case", ''American Law Review'', vol. 4, p. 625 (1870) *

Leila Schneps Leila Schneps is an American mathematician and fiction writer at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique working in number theory. Schneps has written general audience math books and, under the pen name Catherine Shaw, has written mathe ...

and

Coralie Colmez Coralie Colmez is a French author and tutor in mathematics and mathematics education. Early life and career Coralie Colmez is the daughter of mathematicians Pierre Colmez and Leila Schneps. Colmez was raised in Paris, France. After completing ...

, '' Math on trial: How numbers get used and abused in the courtroom'', Basic Books, 2013. . (Ninth chapter: "Math error number 9: choosing a wrong model. The case of Hetty Green: a battle of wills"). {{DEFAULTSORT:Howland Will Forgery Trial 1868 in United States case law Document forgery Forensic statistics