BEST PRACTICES 361
Leonard described my method as only a “program” that
“processes text” in a way that is not transparent because he was
not able to find in the text features such as marked prepositional
phrases or unmarked adjective phrases. (In fact, abstract
syntactic structures are not found in the text itself but in the
syntactic analysis of the text.) Leonard argued that in my
method I do not analyze text as a linguist but just run a
program. Curiously, when Leonard described his own method,
which he called sociolinguistics, he testified that he also uses
computer software written by someone else to create a
concordance or word list. Further, to set his own method apart
from other linguists, Leonard testified that his sociolinguistics
method was not forensic stylistics, even though he concurrently
mentioned that he used twelve of thirteen categories listed as
potential stylemarkers in the primary texts on forensic
stylistics.^64 When asked about the use of his sociolinguistic
method outside of any litigation, Leonard testified that it could
be used as the basis for scripts for movies and television shows.
After the depositions, and due to severe restrictions by the
judge on what could be presented, DLA Piper withdrew its
motion in limine to exclude my testimony and SynAID method.
The court issued a summary judgment, which agreed with
ninety-five percent of my report; the disagreement regarded
documents I had not tested.^65 I was scheduled on a may-call list
to testify, but the case settled with John Doe receiving $2
million and no gag order, an important feature to John Doe and
the reason why this settlement can be reported here.
IV. FORENSIC STYLISTICS APPROACH TO AUTHOR
IDENTIFICATION
Forensic Stylistics is a method derived from handwriting
identification, as mentioned by McMenamin^66 who quotes the
(^64) MCMENAMIN, supra note 2; GERALD R. MCMENAMIN, FORENSIC
LINGUISTICS: ADVANCES IN FORENSIC STYLISTICS (2002) [hereinafter
MCMENAMIN, ADVANCES].
(^65) Best Western, 2006 WL 2091695.
(^66) MCMENAMIN, supra note 2.