The trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann in Flemington, New Jersey, for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr., concluded in 1935 with a conviction based largely on handwriting analysis, wood grain analysis of the ransom ladder, and marked currency evidence. The case became a landmark in the use of forensic document examination and wood science as criminal evidence in American courts. It also sparked debate about the reliability of questioned document examination and expert witness testimony that continued for decades.

The Lindbergh case was the most widely covered American criminal trial of the 1930s and generated extensive journalistic and literary response. H. L. Mencken called it the greatest story since the Resurrection. The case's evidence controversies — particularly around handwriting analysis — fed the literature of wrongful conviction and forensic fallibility that became an important strand in twentieth-century American writing on justice and the state.