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The New Yorker Special Reprint

The New Yorker Special Reprint

DEPT. OF or a chip of paint from a , sur- mises the unlikeliest facts, and presents them to the authorities as incontrovertible ON TRIAL evidence. If “forensic linguist” brings to mind a verbal specialist who plucks slivers Can linguists solve crimes that stump the police? of meaning from old letters and segments of audiotape before announcing that the BY JACK HITT perpetrator is, say, a middle-aged insurance salesman from Philadelphia, that’s not far n the early weeks of 2009, Chris Cole- The police quickly came to suspect from the truth. In the Coleman case, man began telling friends and associ- Coleman himself. A long trail of text Leonard, the head of the linguistics - Iates in Columbia, , that he was messages on his phone made it clear that gram at Hofstra University, on Long Is- worried about the safety of his family. He he was having an affair with a cocktail land, was punctilious in his presentation. had been receiving death threats from an waitress. And if Coleman had left Sheri Relying largely on choice and spell- online stalker, and the e-mails had begun he would have risked losing his salary of ing, he suggested that the same person had to mention his wife, Sheri, and his sons, a hundred thousand dollars a year. Meyer written the threatening e-mails and Garret and Gavin, who were nine and maintained a strict no-divorce policy sprayed the graffiti, and that those speci- eleven. Coleman asked his neighbor across among her employees, in keeping with mens bore similarities to Coleman’s prose the street, a police officer, to train a secu- her understanding of Scripture. In Febru- style. rity camera on the front of his house. ary, Sheri had told a friend that was In preparing his testimony, Leonard Coleman understood surveillance afraid of her husband and “said that if consulted with his frequent partner, better than most. He worked as the secu- anything happened to her, Chris did it,” James Fitzgerald, a retired F.B.I. foren- rity chief for Joyce Meyer, whose cable the friend testified. sic linguist. Fitzgerald brought the field television program, “Enjoying Everyday Still, Coleman maintained his inno- to prominence in 1996 with his work in Life,” is at the center of an evangelical cence, and the evidence against him was the case of the Unabomber, who had empire estimated to be worth more than circumstantial. His DNA was not found sent a series of letter bombs to profes- a hundred million dollars a year; it in- anywhere that would connect him directly sors over several years. Fitzgerald had cludes a radio program, self-help and to the crime. At the trial last spring, nearly successfully urged the F.B.I. to publish children’s books, CDs, podcasts, overseas forty witnesses and evidentiary specialists the Unabomber’s “manifesto”—a ram- missions, and motivational conventions. took the stand. The modern science of fo- bling thirty-five-thousand-word decla- Initially, the threats focussed on Meyer, rensics has spawned numerous specialties ration of the perpetrator’s philosophy. warning that if she didn’t quit preaching and subspecialties, including forensic Many people called the Bureau to say she’d pay , but the stalker soon branches of dentistry, anthropology, sculpt- they recognized the writing style. By turned his wrath on Coleman and his ing, and even entomology (interpreting the analyzing , word choice, and family. One note to Sheri read “Fuck you! presence of certain insects to fix the time other linguistic patterns, Fitzgerald nar- Deny your God publicly or else!” An- of death). At the trial, experts could show rowed down the range of possible au- other read “Time is running out for you that some of the threatening e-mails had thors and finally linked the manifesto to and your family.” been sent from Coleman’s computer, but the writings of , a reclu- On May 5th, Coleman left his they couldn’t prove that it hadn’t been sive former mathematician. For instance, early to work out at the gym. Afterward, hacked. They could tell the jury that Cole- the bomber’s use of the terms “broad” when he called his wife and got no answer, man had purchased a can of red spray paint and “negro,” for women and African- he asked his neighbor the policeman to months before, but they couldn’t link Americans, enabled Fitzgerald roughly check on her. The officer found a horrify- Coleman to the can used in the crime. To- to calculate his age. Both Kaczynski and ing scene. Red graffiti—“Fuck you” and ward the end of the trial, prosecutors asked the Unabomber also showed a prefer- “U have paid!”—was scrawled on the walls for the testimony of Robert Leonard, a ence for dozens of unusual words and ex- and on the sheets of the beds in which practitioner of one of the lesser-known pressions, such as “chimerical,” “anomic,” Sheri, Gavin, and Garret lay strangled to subspecialties: . and “cool-headed logicians,” as well as death. A back window was open, suggest- These days, the word “forensic” conjures the less familiar version of the cliché ing that someone had entered the house an image of a technician on a “C.S.I.” epi- “You can’t eat your cake and have it too.” out of view of the camera. sode who delicately retrieves a single hair A judge ruled that the linguistic evidence

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1 was strong enough to prompt him to mate mechanics worked out during the in the Courtroom.” Shuy is now eighty- issue a search warrant for Kaczynski’s Pliocene era. And context is crucial; when one years old and lives in . cabin in Montana; what was found there we try to record a conversation, we are When I asked him to describe the ori- put him in prison for life. capturing only part of the gestalt of that gins of forensic linguistics, he referred Fitzgerald went on to formalize some of moment. What might appear to be a solid me to an Old Testament story. After a the tools used in forensic linguistics, and audio recording can easily morph into an confusing battle with the Ephraimites, started the Communicated Threat Assess- acoustic Rorschach test. The plot of “The the Gileadites were able to identify the ment Database. The CTAD is the most Conversation,” Francis Ford Coppola’s enemy by asking them each to pro- comprehensive collection of linguistic pat- terns in written threats, containing more than a million words and some four thou- sand “criminally oriented communica- tions.” At the Coleman trial, Leonard noted that many of the killer’s spray- painted sentences began with the word “fuck,” as did the e-mails and letters— usage that at first might seem common. But he explained that a CTAD search showed that only 0.8 per cent of threaten- ing notes used “fuck” as the first word in a sentence. In addition, both the graffiti and the threatening notes relied on two ob- scenities, “fuck” and “bitch,” to the exclu- sion of all others. Leonard went on to compare the graffiti with two hundred and twenty-one e-mails known to have been written by Coleman. He noted that the shorthand “U” for “you” is often found in cell-phone text messages but rarely in e-mails. Both the killer and Coleman used “U” in e-mails. Coleman also consis- tently put the apostrophe of a contraction in the wrong place—“doesnt’ ” and “cant’ ”—as did the killer. Leonard’s tes- timony was disputed in the courtroom, but, in a case with no physical evidence firmly linking Coleman to the crime, Leonard’s words—and Coleman’s—took A suspect’s conversations and writings can be analyzed for patterns and peculiarities. on added weight. After a day of delibera- tions, the jury found Coleman guilty, which made him eligible for the death classic film, turns on this very point: the nounce the Hebrew word “shibboleth.” penalty; the judge sentenced Coleman to protagonist spends the entire movie mis- If they pronounced the first syllable in three life terms in prison. hearing a tiny clip of audiotape. Such er- the Ephraimic dialect, “sib,” instead of in rors and misunderstandings pervade our the Gilead dialect, “shib,” they were ost people assume that meaning lives, in ways that modern language detec- killed. According to Judges 12:6, some is embedded in the words they tives are only beginning to make clear. forty-two thousand Ephraimites failed speak.M But, according to forensic linguists, The pioneer of forensic linguistics is that first linguistic test. meaning is far more vaporous, teased into widely considered to be Roger Shuy, a The field’s more recent origins might existence through vocalized puffs of air, retired Georgetown University profes- be traced to an airplane flight in 1979, hand gestures, body tilts, dancing eye- sor and the author of such fundamental when Shuy found himself sitting next to brows, and nuanced nostril flares. The textbooks as “Language Crimes: The a lawyer. By the end of the flight, Shuy transmission of meaning still involves pri- Use and Abuse of Language Evidence had a recommendation as an expert wit- TIMOTHY GOODMAN

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2 ness in his first case. Since then, known as the “tree belt,” “tree lawn,” or ing forensic linguists into groundbreak- he’s been involved in numerous cases in “sidewalk buffer”—is called the “devil’s ing territory. Others, including Butters, which forensic analysis revealed how strip” only in Akron, Ohio. wonder if he isn’t leading them over a cliff. meaning had been distorted by the pro- In recent years, following Shuy’s lead, cess of writing or recording. In a bribery a growing number of linguists have ap- hen I visited Leonard one after- trial in the nineteen-eighties, two Ne- plied their techniques in criminal cases, noon at Hofstra, he was reviewing vada brothel commissioners were caught such as Chris Coleman’s, and even in aW range of cases: another murder involving on tape in a crucial exchange. When major commercial lawsuits. An upcom- the killer’s letters; a libel suit that turned they were offered a bribe, one turned to ing suit between Apple and Microsoft, on a single, ambiguous sound; an attempt the other and, according to the police slated to go before the Trademark Trial to identify a potential assassin of a prom- transcript, said, “I would take a bribe, and Appeal Board, features two stars of inent politician; and a Whirlpool Corpo- wouldn’t you?” Shuy analyzed the tape the field, Rob Leonard and Ronald But- ration lawsuit involving the meaning of and, on the stand, testified that the de- ters, a retired Duke University linguist. the word “steam.” In a modest office fendant had actually said the opposite: “I At issue is: What part of is the walled with books, I found Leonard wouldn’t take a bribe, would you?” The phrase “app store”? Leonard, siding with working at a laptop. He was noticeably tape was scratchy. Moreover, in conver- Apple, contends that it is a proper noun, kempt, in pressed slacks and a crisp blue sational speech, the “n’t” of a contraction which is to say a trademarked expression button-down shirt—a Sam Spade of se- is barely vocalized. It was hard to hear— that should be capitalized. Butters’s work mantics. His hair was surprisingly dark for or, rather, easy to hear what the listener upholds Microsoft’s view: the term con- a man in his sixties; his eyes were playful was primed to hear. But two facts were sists of two common nouns and is not and his smile fetching, a little bit show biz. indisputable, Shuy noted: both versions proprietary at all. Long before he emerged as one of the of the sentence had exactly eight sylla- Butters is a past president of the In- foremost language detectives in the coun- bles, and the pause fell just before the last ternational Association of Forensic Lin- try, Leonard had achieved a different kind two syllables. Thus, Shuy testified, only guists, which has some two hundred and of celebrity. As an undergraduate at Co- one reading of the sentence made sense: fifty members. Most of them, he said, are lumbia in the nineteen-sixties, he and his “I wouldn’t take a bribe, would you?” in the United States, England, and , brother George revolutionized the school’s The trial resulted in a hung jury. but interest has spread to Australia, a-cappella group by having everyone dress Shuy has become famous in his Japan, and China. Today, one can study as faux Brooklyn thugs (white T-shirts, discipline for some of the field’s finest forensic linguistics at several schools, and greased-back hair) and sing up-tempo ar- Holmesian aperçus. Early in his career, last year Leonard inaugurated the first rangements of such nineteen-fifties doo- the police in Illinois approached him re- graduate program in forensic linguistics, wop classics as “Duke of Earl” and “At the garding a notorious kidnapping case; at Hofstra. For those earning a master’s Hop.” They named the group Sha Na Na they had several suspects, and they degree, the field offers job prospects out- and became wildly popular. One of their hoped his reading of the ransom notes side the courtroom. Immigration and hits was “Teen Angel,” which Leonard might help narrow down the list of sus- Customs Enforcement hires language sang at Woodstock just before Jimi Hen- pects. In each note, the kidnapper de- detectives to assist agents in evaluating drix, who had invited Sha Na Na, débuted manded money in a semiliterate rant: asylum seekers. In such cases, forensic his version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” “No kops! Come alone!!,” followed by a linguists interview applicants to verify By 1970, Leonard the had terse instruction—“Put it in the green that their accents and their use of idiom to choose between academia and show trash kan on the devil strip at the corner and slang match those of the country business. “All of our good friends were 18th and Carlson.” Shuy studied the let- they claim to have fled. dying of drug overdoses,” he said. “I just ters and then asked, “Is one of your sus- Increasingly in the courtroom, how- decided to move on.” Leonard finished his pects an educated man born in Akron, ever, forensic linguists have been asked to undergraduate studies at Columbia; Wil- Ohio?” The cops were stunned. There weigh in on matters of “author identi­ liam Labov, a prominent linguist who had was one who matched that description fication”—not to determine the gram- introduced him to the field, helped him perfectly, and when confronted he con- matical signific­ ance of certain words but earn a fellowship. Leonard pursued a fessed. As Shuy subsequently explained, to identify who said or wrote them. This scholarly career until 2000, when he heard “kop” and “kan” most likely were inten- trend has widened an old schism in the Shuy give a lecture urging linguists to tional misspellings by someone posing field. Given the stakes in, say, the Cole- apply their training in the real world—es- as illiterate. And he knew from his re- man case—a murder potentially pecially in the courtroom, as language de- search that the patch of grass between involving the death sentence—some lin- tectives. Leonard struck up a professional the sidewalk and the street—sometimes guists hold the view that Leonard is tak- friendship with Shuy and has been con-

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3 KALPOE: You’d be surprised how simple it sulting on cases ever since. was that night. to side,” as if to deny the accusations. The As we sat in his office, Leonard de- program, though, aired only a still photo scribed his recent involvement in the of Deepak. The case has yet to go to trial, tabloid saga of Natalee Holloway. In Watching an unedited piece of foot- but when it does, Leonard says, he will 2005, after graduating from high school age doesn’t require a linguistics expert, argue that there is enough redundancy in in , Holloway went with her but Leonard realized that there were the semiotic detritus of these sounds to friends on a chaperoned trip to other issues at play. During the covert conclude that Kalpoe’s meaning is clear: and disappeared. The case remains un- interview, the microphone generated a he is stating that he did not have sex with solved. The chief suspect is a young great deal of confusing ambient sound. Holloway that night. Dutchman named Joran van der Sloot, Moreover, the hidden camera captured It may be that the changes made to the who pleaded guilty in 2012 to charges of only the top of Kalpoe’s head, so his face edited interview were deliberately damag- murdering a twenty-one-year-old and lips weren’t visible. Amid the ing, but forensic linguists offer another woman in . In Aruba, two young muffled noises, and before Kalpoe possibility: that a subtle presumption of brothers, Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, speaks, there is an odd sound—sha!— guilt unconsciously overwhelmed the ed- were initially arrested (they and van der which Kalpoe appears to make just be- iting process and inverted the meaning of Sloot had partied with Holloway the fore “No.” When I met with Leonard, he the exchange. Such inversions, linguists night before she disappeared), but were had been concentrating on this sound. say, happen far more often than we might released in the first weeks of the investi- An expert hired by the opposing coun- like to believe. gation. After being the subjects of a tele- sel was taking the position that the sha! vision exposé, the brothers are suing Dr. might not be a throat-clearing or some ccording to Leonard, words serve as Phil McGraw and CBS for defamation. other stray sound, as Leonard contends, catalysts, setting off sparks of poten- The Kalpoe legal team has hired Leon- but a “voiceless vowel with ‘r’ coloration.” Atial meaning that the listener organizes ard as their expert witness in a lawsuit Leonard explained: “Vowels are the into more specific meaning by observing that could turn on the pronunciation of most open of sounds, and when you come facial expressions, body language, and a single syllable. off a vowel and cease saying it you switch other redundant cues. We then employ The “Dr. Phil” show promoted the ex- the vocal apparatus to pronounce the next another powerful tool: prior experience posé by claiming, “You are going to find sound.” In some words, like “forth,” the “r” and the storehouse of narratives that each out what he”—Deepak—“says he did gets full phonetic treatment, but in many of us carries—what linguists call “schema.” with Natalee the night she disappeared.” words, like “bird” and “sure,” the “r” isn’t To every exchange we bring unconscious An announcer adds, “What he said fully voiced and instead becomes a shadow scripts; as any given sentence unspools, we brought Natalee’s mother to tears.” On the of the vowel, just because it’s easier to say readjust the schema to make better sense show, viewers listen to the audio of Deepak that way. If the lawyers for “Dr. Phil” can of what we are hearing. being secretly videotaped by a private in- show that the first word Kalpoe spoke in One afternoon at Hofstra, Leonard vestigator named Jamie Skeeters and that sentence was “sure,” and that there is explained to the twenty students in his in- making an astonishing confession: no audible “n’t” at the end of “did,” then the troductory course how this works. He

SKEETERS: I’m sure she had sex transcript of Kalpoe’s first ut- wrote a sentence on the board: “John was with all of you. terance changes from “No, she on his way to school last Friday and was KALPOE: She did. You’d be didn’t” to its opposite, “Sure, really worried about the math lesson.” He surprised how simple it was. no, she did.” quizzed the students on what they might Like all linguists, Leonard presume about this story. John is a stu- Leonard examined the starts from the position that dent, one called out; he is either on a bus uncut version of the exchange. meaning is delicately contin- or walking. In it, Kalpoe denies having sex gent, and that the most com- “So we can just close our eyes and with Holloway. “Simple” refers mon way we compensate for imagine John the schoolboy on the bus,” to the fact that, from his point this frailty is “redundancy.” Leonard said. “But are we all imagining of view, the evening was un- We say the same thing more John with the same height, the same hair eventful: than once, or in more than color?” Nothing in the sentence signals SKEETERS: I’m sure she had sex with all of one way. In his written report to the court any of that information, yet each of us you, and . . . good . . . on this case, Leonard notes that the orig- supplies our own variant, which awaits KALPOE: No, she didn’t. inal video of the meeting between further verbal data for confirmation. SKEETERS: O.K., well, I mean, good. If she did, fine. Deepak Kalpoe and Skeeters shows Leonard wrote another sentence be- Deepak “shaking his head ‘no’ from side neath the first: “Last week, he had been

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4 unable to control the class.” Who is John in prison. Shuy later noted that, with such laden letters around the country; the ac- now? “A teacher!” someone shouted. And attitudes prevalent, the schema of the “cor- cusation wrecked Hatfill’s career and re- how is John getting to school? “A car!” rupt congressman” overwhelmed even the sulted in a settled lawsuit. Foster then Leonard wrote a third sentence: “It plainest facts pointing to Williams’s inno- recanted a previous claim linking a 1612 was not fair for the math teacher to leave cence. After the trial, the lead juror con- poem of dubious provenance to Shake- him in charge.” Instantly, the students rev- fessed that had he known all the facts he speare; another academic had shown elled in John’s new identity as a janitor or would not have found Williams guilty. that the analysis was fatally flawed. Fos- a substitute teacher. The Senator was forced to resign his seat, ter has since retreated to his campus in Meaning, Leonard noted, is con- though he declared his innocence at every Poughkeepsie. stantly bent by expectation, and can be opportunity. He was the first senator in Foster’s disgrace left most forensic lin- grossly distorted. Indeed, one of Shuy’s eighty years to go to prison; President Bill guists feeling cautious. Now that Leon- first studies, of the Abscam trials of the Clinton refused to pardon him. ard’s work is bringing the field back into nineteen-eighties, reveals just how easily the realm of author identification, some the meaning of linguistic evidence can be hortly after the Unabomber case was are worried. Ronald Butters, the Duke twisted by a background assumption of cracked, in 1996, forensic linguistics linguist, provided expert testimony for guilt. Abscam was an F.B.I. sting opera- Sgained another public boost. Donald Fos- the defense at the Coleman trial and tion in which nine United States con- ter, an English at Vassar, em- challenged every aspect of Leonard’s tes- gressmen were lured to meetings with a ployed the most basic forensic technique— timony as “linguistically meaningless.” government agent posing as an Arab oil tallying word frequency—to unm­ ask the Butters argued that even though certain sheikh with “Abdul Enterprises.” The ini- anonymous author of “Primary Colors,” linguistic oddities, such as using “U” for tial meeting was described as a legitimate the best-selling novel about Clinton’s first “you” or consistently misplacing the apos- business deal. At one point, though, the Presidential campaign: Joe Klein. Foster trophe in contractions, seemed distinc- agent playing the sheikh would offer the analyzed dozens of pages of writing from tive, there weren’t enough examples to be congressmen an outright bribe. Their several suspects, including Time’s Walter statistically significant. Moreover, Butters conversations were videotaped, and some Shapiro and the former Deputy Treasury told me, it can be tricky to compare of the evidence was breathtakingly un- Secretary Roger Altman. He compiled a different genres of even a single person’s ambiguous. Representative John Jenrette, concordance that showed how frequently writing. Reading, say, a routine office of South Carolina, accepted the money each writer used certain words, compared e-mail alongside rants spray-painted on cheerfully and chirped on tape, “I’ve got this information with a database of word a wall makes about as much sense as larceny in my blood!” frequency in the novel, and was able comparing the prose in one of Wallace The sting resulted in seven to identify the author. Stevens’s insurance riders with the ca- . Toward the end For a short time, the potential dences of his poem “Sunday Morning.” came the trial of Senator Har- of forensic linguistics seemed lim- “Really bad linguistic testimony is rison (Pete) Williams, of New itless. With enough raw data and when you go to court and say you’re pretty Jersey. Shuy listened to those computing power, a trail of words sure that this person wrote that, and yet tapes and became convinced might betray its author as reliably you’re comparing apples and oranges,” that the Senator was innocent. as a set of fingerprints identifies an Butters said. Leonard argues that he Whenever the sheikh raised individual. Foster, though, was a never claims to a specific author but the issue of bribery or illegality, professor of literature, not a lin- simply presents­ comparative evidence for Williams steered the conversa- guist; he was not trained to use the the jury. Butters, Leonard said, “is a spe- tion to legal ground. At one forensic methods that Shuy had cialist in trademark cases, so I’m not sure point, the sheikh put the bribe mastered, such as listening for un- what his experience was in authorship directly to Williams: “I would like to conscious semantic patterns and looking cases, and they are two quite different ap- give you . . . some money for, for perma- for distinctive phrases or unusual collo- plications of linguistics.” On the stand, nent residence.” The first four words of quialisms. Overconfident, Foster went Butters admitted that he hadn’t read all Williams’s reply were “No, no, no, no.” on to identify a suspect in the JonBenét Leonard’s research on the evidence; his A prosecution memo at the time stated Ramsey murder case, only to learn that challenge was focussed on Leonard’s that there was no case against Williams, he had already been cleared by the po- methodology and its purported usefulness but the judge, who, in his ruling, decried lice. In the days after September 11, in the identification of individual authors. “the and hypocrisy of corrupt 2001, Foster falsely implicated the bio- Butters said, “Forensic linguistics has not public officials,” set it aside; Williams was weapons expert Steven Hatfill as the come to a place where we are mature found guilty and sentenced to three years person who had sent several anthrax- enough to answer a lot of these questions.”

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5 Carole Chaski, the executive director to have human intelligence, human pow- Family, disciplined its members was to of the Institute for Linguistic Evidence ers of inference, and human encyclopedic make them copy propaganda by hand. and the president of Alias , in knowledge of the world” to make sense of All the gang members had picked up the Georgetown, Delaware, which markets it. At the end of the day, the scientific oddities pinned on Masters, Leonard de- linguistic software, agrees. Chaski has findings depend on human interpretation, termined. “Thus, when we examine the been working to perfect a computer algo- Leonard said. Computers can crunch corpus of non-murder documents writ- rithm that identifies patterns hidden in reams of words, but only people can decide ten by other B.G.F. members,” Leonard syntax. With enough linguistic material to what the words mean. said, “we discover the features that may work with, she says, she can run the pro- Shuy told me that he, too, initially had at first seem to educated writers like the gram and draw accurate linguistic conclu- doubts about author identification. “That prosecution to be randomly incorrect, sions. Her goal is to develop a standard is how I felt until Rob Leonard started highly idiosyncratic features were not “validated tool” that police, civil investiga- working,” he said. “Rob has come up with random at all but systemic features of the tors, and linguists can turn to when testi- this competing-hypothesis approach.” In B.G.F. community.” fying in crucial cases, such as a capital the same way that DNA technicians will murder trial. “If this is real, these tools report only the statistical likelihood that n some level, extracting meaning should be so reliable that I can automate the killer’s DNA and the DNA found on from linguistic evidence is what them and somebody can use them,” she says. the murder weapon are the same, Leon- weO all do intuitively every day. Forensic Chaski foresees a time when forensic-lin- ard creates a number of opposing hy- professionals go about the same work, guistic “technicians” will do what DNA potheses and presents the evidence in with better tools and a heightened sense technicians in crime labs do: “They learn light of them. In the Coleman trial, of how easily meaning can be miscon- how to run a piece of software or run a Leonard did not declare that Coleman strued. As one forensic-linguistics firm, Southern blot”—a standard DNA test— was the author of the red graffiti and Testipro, puts it in its online promo- “through electrophoresis and then go, the threatening e-mails; rather, he tional pitch, the field is “the basis of the ‘Here are my results.’ ” testified that the language in them “is entire legal system. Both Judges and Ju- In Chaski’s view, a trail of words can consistent with” the language in Cole- ries are using informal or unconscious be parsed to reveal its author, but that man’s writings. FL”—forensic linguistics—“every time work is best done quantitatively, through “I don’t know any forensic linguists they weigh a witness statement or testi- brute computational force, not qualita- who will claim that they can find the mony document.” The field is bound to tively, by subjective scholars. Forensic lin- answer for you,” Shuy said. “Our role is thrive on the ever-growing piles of what guistics, she believes, should not be lim- to analyze the data and give it to the Shuy calls “data.” Our embrace of per- ited to a few highly credentialled experts triers of the facts, who have to evaluate sonal media—e-mails, text messages, who have been approved by the courts it or issue the ultimate decision of in- voice mail, tweets—has created an ava- to testify. She warned me of the reckless- nocence or guilt. We don’t go that far, lanche of tossed-off language, an evi- ness of an “academic” and an “ex-cop” and shouldn’t.” dentiary trail that linguists are getting hanging out a shingle, and said their Shuy also noted that it was Leonard better and better at following. methodology was “fraught with error.” who popularized a safeguard against com- Shuy believes that forensic linguistics In the small world of forensic linguistics, paring unrelated documents, called a can do for language crimes, such as brib- it was obvious that she meant Leonard Community of Practice filter. For in- ery, blackmail, and , what DNA and Fitzgerald. stance, Coleman’s use of “U” for “you” has done for violent crimes. It could offer Leonard said that Chaski’s computer- would be of no use in a pool of text mes- a counterweight to the many old-school ized approach made him “want to take a sages, but as an unusual abbreviation in an methods, like lineups and unrecorded po- nap.” His methods and findings are all e-mail it becomes another point of data. lice interrogations, that are heavily relied transparent, he noted, whereas her algo- Recently, Leonard used this tech- upon despite serious flaws. “I won’t claim rithm is a proprietary “black box.” He does nique to question a charge, levelled at a that we have anything remotely like not believe that computer software can jailed gang member, of murdering a DNA in this work,” Shuy said, “but we eliminate the need for human interpreta- prison guard. Prosecutors had linked the are a whole lot better than a lot of the tion. “Even those algorithms have to be prisoner, Jarvis Masters, to a note that ul- crazy schemes that cops are being taught.” coded by humans,” he said; any good lin- timately led to the guard’s murder, based Leonard offered a sobering statistic: guist will depend on both quantitative and on misspellings such as “has’nt” and eighty per cent of people who were later qualitative analysis. “One thing we have “is’nt” and the use of “no” for “know.” But exonerated by DNA evidence had falsely learned about language is that it is a very in his research Leonard learned that the confessed to their alleged crimes. “When human form of communication. You have way Masters’s gang, the Black Guerrilla I got into this business, I figured if there

the new yorker special reprint

6 was an eyewitness or a confession, then A few weeks ago, Leonard finished an expert witness, Leonard testified case closed, the guy absolutely, one hun- testifying in the retrial of Brian Hum- about Hummert’s prose style, noting the dred per cent did it. But those are the two mert, a Pennsylvania man charged with rare use of what he calls “ironic repeti- shakiest types of evidence, really.” He re- strangling his wife. After initial suspi- tion” in constructions such as “She tried called many cases where a confession on cions pointed to Hummert, the police re- to break it off, so I broke her neck.” And paper turned out to be no confession at ceived handwritten letters claiming that all the letters contained a linguistic habit all. “The way humans perceive language a , not Hummert, had com- that, Leonard testified, he had found no- is according to schemas, which lead to mitted the murder. Once again, the lin- where else: a tendency to use contrac- misperceptions as much as perceptions.” guistic evidence was important to the tions in negative statements (“I can’t”) In a sense, investigators who try to extract case. The notes bore a resemblance to a but not in positive ones (“I am”). The jury evidence from confessions are acting as series of stalker letters that preceded the was out for forty-five minutes and re- linguists, too, albeit poorly trained ones. killing and to the defendant’s writing. As turned a verdict of guilty. 

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the new yorker special reprint

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