Robert A. Leonard

Robert A. Leonard is an American linguist. He is best known for his work in forensic linguistics, the application of linguistic theory to the analysis of language evidence.^[2] Prior to his academic career, Leonard was a member of the rock band Sha Na Na and performed at Woodstock.

Biography

While he was working on his undergraduate degree at Columbia University, Leonard, along with his brother George, was a part of the school's a cappella group.^[3] In 1969, the doo-wop band Sha Na Na was born when George suggested changing the style of the group to a faux Brooklyn thug style, with slicked back hair and white shirts. Leonard, then the bass singer of the band, sang lead on “Teen Angel” when the band opened for their friend Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock. Leonard was rated by TIME magazine as the second-smartest rock star in history: "[He] opened for Jimi Hendrix [at Woodstock]...but music stardom held little appeal for Leonard, who traded limousines and gold-lamé suits to pursue studies in linguistics." Leonard spent two years with the band, until he stopped at the age of 21.^[4] He did so in order to further both his education and his passion, linguistics, with a fellowship at Columbia Graduate School.^[5]

Education and Qualifications

Robert Leonard began his education at Columbia College, receiving his B.A. and graduating in 1970 cum laude with a degree in Sociology. He then moved on to Columbia Graduate School, receiving his M.A and M. Phil. in Linguistics in 1973, and his Ph.D in Linguistics in 1982. While receiving his PhD at Columbia, he was trained by William Diver,^[6] founder of Columbia School linguistic theory, and William Labov,^[2] founder of variationist sociolinguistics. During a Fulbright Fellowship^[7] tenure which lasted from 1974-1975, Leonard studied at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. He held a position as a Research Associate at the Institute of African Studies. His other training includes Advanced Linguistics Training at the Linguistic Society Institute, and Leonard studied at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in the summer of 1973 and the University of Hawaii, Honolulu in the summer of 1977. Leonard also studied the Thai Language at the American University Alumni Association in Bangkok, Thailand during the summer of 1976.^[8]

Leonard is qualified as an Expert Witness in Linguistics in 12 States, and 6 Federal District Courts (Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, and in U.S. District Courts in Newark, NJ, Austin, TX, New York, NY, San Jose, CA, Tampa, FL, and Denver, CO) and has also testified before World Bank ICSID Tribunals in Washington, DC, and Paris. In addition, he knows how to speak and read several varieties of Swahili, as well as French and Spanish. He knows how to read Italian, and has structural knowledge of Giriama, Kamba, Rabai, Pokomo (Kenya); Shona (Zimbabwe); Thai, and Arabic.

Career

Robert A. Leonard has assisted in solving many cases.^[9] These are just a few of the cases upon which he has worked and how he helped solve them:

• The Murder of JonBenet Ramsay: Leonard testified that the ransom note was unlikely to have been written by John Mark Karr, who was found to have falsely confessed to the murder.^[10]
• The Murder of Charlene Hummert: Leonard testified that letters supposedly sent by a stalker to Charlene Hummert were actually consistent with the writing of Charlene's husband Brian Hummert, partially based on the contraction patterns of positive and negative statements. Brian Hummert was found guilty of the murder.^[11]
• The Tennessee Facebook Murders: Leonard testified that the writing patterns of a series of Facebook messages by a supposed CIA agent named "Chris," who allegedly condoned the murders as a CIA hit, were consistent with the writing patterns of the two suspects, Jenelle and Barbara Potter. Leonard's analysis was partially based on the idiosyncratic use of quotation marks; in this case, a single quote was used at the beginning of the quotation, but a double quote was used at the end. Both Jenelle and Barbara Potter were found complicit in the murders.^[12]
• Featured on many TV shows such as The Forensic Files: A Tight Leash, Uncovering the Truth: Byron Case and Michael Politte Exoneration Cases on MTV, and Too Pretty to Live: The Catfishing Murders of East Tennessee on Investigation Discovery.
• Presented "The Groundbreaking Science of Forensic Linguistics" at the Polyglot Conference in 2015.^[13]

Leonard founded and directs the graduate program in "Linguistics: Forensic Linguistics" at Hofstra University,^[14] where he is Professor of Linguistics.^[1][15][16]

He previously taught at Columbia.^[17] The New Yorker wrote that Leonard “has emerged as one of the foremost language detectives in the country,” and jocularly termed him “a Sam Spade of semantics.”^[2] Newsday characterized him as “Professor Henry Higgins meets Sherlock Holmes.”^[18] Leonard's forensic linguistic consulting clients have included the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force, the FBI, Federal Public Defenders offices, and the Prime Minister of Canada.^[19]

Leonard was recruited by the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI to train its agents in forensic linguistic analysis at Quantico, and he has trained British law enforcement units in London. He was Apple's linguist in its civil trademark cases against both Microsoft and Amazon.^[2][20] Salon pointed out that Leonard came from quite a different former career path: “’I like to say I’m one of the very few people in the world who have worked with the FBI and the Grateful Dead,’ quips Leonard, who has trained FBI agents in how to analyze language for clues in solving crimes.”^[21]

Leonard serves as a member of the editorial board of the Oxford University Press series Language and the Law.^[22]

References

External links

• Official website
• Leonard, George J.; Leonard, Robert A. (2016-04-22). "Sha Na Na and the Woodstock Generation". Archived from the original on 2016-04-22. Retrieved 2018-02-05.