And I hear the rookie FBI flack who outted the hard-working, law-abiding father as a terror suspect, just for laughs to her girlfriend, through email, is back on the job, making almost $100,000 a year, again, after her suspension from Jumpy Jordan's crack squad of do-gooders.

And at the end of the day, the FBI was wrong, wrong, wrong (same guys who knew about 9/11 but yawned), and Mayfield and Spence were right, right, right.

Congrats to both of them. You beat the FBI. Badly.

The feds saw what they wanted to see in that fingerprint. Wishful policing -- just like Iraq.

Yes, Mr. BoJack, all of the European police agencies said the print did not match, but our FBI flatfeet saw Mayfield in the print, like those nice Christian folks in the South who see Jesus Christ in their taco salad.

BTW, I was in Western Europe when 3/11 happened and it may sound like hyperbole but it crushed them like 9/11 hit America.

The man is named as a suspect, detained, and later released after being found innocent. Isnt that how our justice system is supposed to work? Why the big payday?

Why the big payday?

In part, to keep it from happening again.

"The Patriot Act is decidedly not patriotic, for it was the first step by the Bush Administration to weaken our sacred civil rights to be secure in our homes, to privacy in our offices and in our electronic communications"

That is such BS. That stuff was already available under drug enforcement laws. They just added "terrorism." How come nobody bitched until the PATRIOT ACT was enacted?
Using it for drug dealers was ok, but not for terrorists?

"Why the big payday?" Its a little more complicated than you describe, Dave J. The question really begins in how the FBI decided to run the prints from Madrid against Mayfiels in the first place. Contrary to what you see on CSI television, prints simply don't run through a giant database. The FBI actually had to select mr. Mayfield's prints to be run against the match. And that, precisely, is one of the things the Govt desparately wants to avoid litigating: why they had Mayfield in a list of possible suspects before any match of prints was made...

Plus, all Mr. Mayfield wanted in the first place was a simple apology--and the FBI refused; notice that remained part of the settlement even today.

The FBI report actually said Brandon Mayfield had "unexplained foreign language documents" on his kitchen table, the very words used to obtain a secret search warrant.

The "documents" were his kid's Spanish homework.

That's worth a few mill right there for being such EE-diots, as they say in Europe.

I am glad that the Mayfield family has been compensated for the despicable neo-fascist behavior on the part of these thugs. Brandon Mayfield's reference to George Orwell's 1984 is spot on, and I can only imagine what was going through his mind worrying about his family while he was sitting in a jail cell while falsely accused of murdering hundreds of people. A cool $2 million is a equivalent to the U.S. Govt. bending over, pulling down it's pants and taking a serious spanking for what it did. It would have been fun to watch Gerry Spence embarrass the hell out of the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys office in a courtroom, but when they waive a white flag of surrender like they did it's pretty hard shoot them between the eyes anyhow. Being able to continue on with the contitutional challenge allows the Mayfield's to take the money and not feel like they sold out their principles.

We will probably never know what the lawyers actually charged, but cases of this nature are usually handled on a contingency. The usual and customary contingency fee for a pre-trial settlement is one third of the settlement plus costs. I would be very surprised if the client ended up with less than $1 million tax free in this instance.

The settlement most likely is not tax-free to the Mayfields.

The amount of the settlement - and who got how much - is a bit of a distraction is it not? Most people who sue on these issues aren't doing it for the monetary compensation. I'm a little surprised that you'd jump on that anti-trial lawyer bandwagon Jack.

Funny thing is, Madam Hatter, Gerry Spence does a ton of pro bono work too, like Mr. Bojack, I am sure.

Oh, yes. Did you know that the FBI's top cop in Portland, Robert "Jumpy" Jordan, was featured in a "60 Minutes" story on federal whistleblowers? It's not pretty, but as lawyers say, goes to the topic at hand.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/11/25/60minutes/main530750.shtml

With the Christmas season upon us, let's all wish the FBI's Robert Jordan the best of his luck in his law enforcement career as he continues to stumble his way down the ladder of success... Quantico, Washington, DC, Portland,... next stop... Walla Walla?

I'm a little surprised that you'd jump on that anti-trial lawyer bandwagon Jack.

GONG!!!!!

That's the bell I ring when I get criticized for saying something that I didn't say.

About the fifth time it's gone off today.

Sorry. But I took that to be the implication of your last statement. It IS the standard rhetoric used by the anti-trial lawyer lobby, after all. My mistake.

"The amount of the settlement - and who got how much - is a bit of a distraction is it not?" As I stated above "A cool $2 million is a equivalent to the U.S. Govt. bending over, pulling down it's pants and taking a serious spanking for what it did." Money damages are retribution and represent justice to a victim. Anyone who believes differently is kidding themselves. There are no other instances that I am aware of where the United States Government has voluntarily written a check for $2 million to an individual it wrongly investigated and incarcerated. The U.S. Govt. has shot innocent children with FBI snipers and paid less than this. Someone tell me if I'm wrong. False imprisonment sounds like a physical personal injury to me. If it's not settled in the law it's certainly worth litigating with the IRS. Maybe Mayfield's legal team managed to include a non-taxable provision in the settlement. Sort of ironic if he made a big settlement and then watches a large chunk of it go back to Uncle Sam so they can use it to kill more Muslims in the Middle East.

I got a BIG LAUGH in the morning paper when Jumpy Jordan said he "made no mistakes and conducted a professional investigation."

So why are his bosses paying out $2,000,000 and allowing Mayfield to puruse his anti-Patriot Act lawsuit?

Seems Jumpy Jordan is as mentally-confused as his bosses, like Alberto the Mental Midget!

Oh and congrats to the little bitty FBI flack whose stupid, public email led to the multi-million-dollar verdict.

Remember the email? I do.

"We don't have enough evidence to arrest him, but we can fock his life up for a while."

Some would like to see that little FBI missy in chains, but then, I hear she might like it!

Jack, I've lost too many brain cells since your tax class. Why wouldn't the settlement be tax exempt?

Jack, I hope you answer Molly's question. If it was a settlement for personal injuries (not lost income), it's not taxed, right?

Damages for personal injury are excluded from gross income if there was a physical injury involved. In this case, there wasn't any physical injury alleged.

There's a recent rogue decision by the D.C. Circuit to the contrary (the infamous Murphy case), but Mayfield doesn't live in D.C., and so it probably won't help him much.

At least he will get to deduct his attorneys' fees.

Thanks, Jack.

I found it interesting that the "fingerprint expert" Mayfield's own lawyer brought in said they were his prints too. But the FBI are the only ones labeled as dumbasses.

Contrary to what you see on CSI television, prints simply don't run through a giant database.

Interesting...MSNBC two years ago:

The case began when FBI fingerprint examiners in Quantico, Va., searched for possible matches to a digital image of a fingerprint found on a bag of detonators the day of the Spanish bombings on March 11.

The system returned 15 possible matches, including prints belonging to Mayfield, on file from a 1984 burglary arrest in Wichita, Kan., when Mayfield was a teenager.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5053007/

Oh, and also notice in that article, they did "apologize" in 2004.

Jack:

I spoke with a retired fingerprint specialist who had a chance to review Mayfield's fingerprint vs. the one on the luggage found in Madrid.

He said they were nearly identical. Maybe you've had a similar conversation with a fingerprint analyst, but your indignant
"the feds saw what they wanted to see" is not supported by the facts. Just because Spence won $2 million and an apology doesn't mean the FBI was bent on destroying an innocent man's life simply because he was a Muslim. To the contrary, the system worked as intended: when they realized they made a mistake, they released him.

It seems unlikely that a similar mistake made in China, Russia, or Cuba would end with similar transparency. They have been known to bury their mistakes.

I spoke with a retired fingerprint specialist who had a chance to review
Mayfield's fingerprint vs. the one on the luggage found in Madrid.

He said they were nearly identical.

What's the big mystery? You don't need to talk to some guy who says he saw them. You can see them for yourself here.

I can see differences.

The facts are: The FBI Latent Print Unit ran the print collected in Madrid and reported a match against one of 20 fingerprint candidates returned in a search response from their Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification (IAFIS) system. The FBI initially called the match "100 percent positive" and an "absolutely incontrovertible match". The Spanish National Police examiners concluded the prints did not match Mayfield, and after two weeks identified another man who matched the prints.

If the prints were that close, they wouldn't be paying $2 mil. They blew it, and badly.

With all due respect, Jack...I don't think we can reduce fingerprint analysis to what laymen "see" in the photograph of two prints which you provided.

Clearly, looking at the photograph of the two prints, they have not been aligned on the same axis and they don't show the same exposure of the finger. Most importantly, a large portion of the print on the right is white -- devoid of any ink -- which complicates the comparison. Of course they "look different"...a large chunk of white in the right print, the view offset, and the misalignment on the x-axis all make it look different.

If you whited-out the same portion of the left print, put them on the same x-axis, and then compared the numerical points of similarity, they are quite similar. The fact that a computer included it in the list of "possible" matches is dispositive in my view.

The fact that a computer included it in the list of "possible" matches is dispositive in my view.

The fact that the Spanish authorities, where the heinous crime in question was committed, throughly examined the print and had no interest in Mayfield is dispositive in my view.

And don't tell me -- you voted for Bush.

Jack:

The FBI clearly made a mistake...A fact which is not in question. It seems very likely the Mayfield's family religion BROUGHT ADDITIONAL SCRUTINY to bear on his fingerprints.

I am contesting your claim that "the Feds saw what they wanted to see"...which suggests they only pursued Mayfield because of his religion. If you believe that, then you should explain how the IAFIS software was designed to engage in anti-Islamist profiling. It clearly wasn't based on the subject's name.

If the fingerprints were not remarkably similar, IAFIS would not have picked Mayfield's prints from a database that exceeds 47 million PEOPLE.

The bottom line is this:

If Portland FBI Special Agent Beth Anne Steele had any brains, she would not have sent an email to her FBI girlfriend in LA that said:

"We do not have enough evidence to arrest Brandon Mayfield as a suspect, but the media wants an arrest, fast, so we'll grab him as a material witness to shake him up."

Those words cost me, you and all of the American taxpayers $2,000,000. Or what The Pentagon spends in Iraq by the time you finish reading this post.

But, sadly, the biggest FBI mistake since 9/11 did not cost Ms. Steele her job, or her freedom, as it should have.

The good news is that the name "Beth Ann Steele" will be taught in law classes around the world forever. Heck, Al Jazeera put her mug on the front page of their web site, so Steele's vacation plans will not lead to the Arab world anytime soon.

So, thanks again, Special Agent Steele. You really are history!

The FBI report actually said Brandon Mayfield had "unexplained foreign language documents" on his kitchen table, the very words used to obtain a secret search warrant.

The "documents" were his kid's Spanish homework.

And along with those documents in the home were $10k in cash, airline schedules from Portland to Madrid, and phone numbers in Madrid.
Gee, I wonder why they thought he was a "suspect?"

Lemme ask this...say the cops think they find your finderprint at a murder scene. Maybe on a doorknob or something. Then the same thing happens...you are detained, questioned, etc. Then it turns out that it wasnt your print after all, just "close". They apologize and you are released.
Should you get $2 mil? Or did the system work as it should?