The anti-Semitic superiors
A French soldier by the name Alfred Dreyfus was sent to the Devil’s Island penal colony in 1894 as a traitor to the Republic of France. Captain Dreyfus had been accused of leaking information to the Germans during the war, and so he was convicted. Two years later, the truth reigned, and it was established that it was Ferdinand Walsin who had actually betrayed his nation. The French military was keen to suppress the evidence until 1899. It again took another seven years to exonerate Alfred Dreyfus i.e., in the year 1906. The republic of French became so much divided concerning the entire affair as some argued that Captain Dreyfus was targeted just because he was an Alsatian Jew. The anti-Semitic superiors were anxious to prove that the Jews were not patriotic to the nations where they lived.
The prosecution, Alphonse Bertillon, put a number of handwriting witnesses to testify. These witnesses were either unqualified people or outright charlatans whose interest was only to please the prosecution. To counter the handwriting case, the defense brought their witnesses on handwriting to stand. However, these people had not examined the real original document. Instead, they had checked the bordereau engraved facsimile. As a result, the only option they were left with was to assert that the defendant’s handwriting and the engravings were not the same. Alfred Gobert, who happened to be the most witness on the script and also one of the experts tasked by the Bank of France, testified that the known writing was indeed of the same graphic type. However, he admitted that they presented significant disparities that had to be considered and taken into account. The conclusion was, therefore, that chances were the bordereau came from a different person and not the defendant.
The handwriting in the trial of Alfred Dreyfus had little or nothing to do with the scientific document examination. This implied an absurd but celebrated trial which had never happened in the forensic science history. The military court had found Alfred Dreyfus guilty of treason and went ahead to charge him with life imprisonment without a single piece of forensic evidence.
In response to the injustice portrayed by the military court, Emile Zola, who was a French novelist, published an open letter called “J” Accuse. He accused the judges of operating under the influence of the military. He managed to sell more than 200000 copies by evening, and this led to his arrest one month later and sentenced to jail. Zola escaped to England, but the scandal led to the birth of a perilous national division. The division comprised of Catholic Church members and nationalists who supported the military while, on the other hand, the socialites, republicans, religious freedom, and advocates defended Dreyfus.
In 1898, Major Hubert Henry, who was the discoverer of the letter attributed to Dreyfus, admitted that he was the one who forged evidence against the captain and later committed suicide. It is then that the military was forced to make an order for a new court-martial for Captain Dreyfus. The Supreme Court overturned another conviction in 1906, which had charged him with ten years’ imprisonment. The entire saga led to liberalization in France, a formal separation between the state and the church, and also reduction of power for the military.
To prevent another miscarriage of justice, I would recommend thorough investigations to be done before one is charged. It is better to take time investigating rather than rushing with the investigations and making the wrong conclusion. The investigative bodies must also be empowered to enable them to conduct quality investigations.