Brandon Mayfield
Washington
County, Oregon
Date of Crime: March 11, 2004
(Federal Case) On March 11, 2004, a number of bombs
were detonated on trains in Madrid, Spain, which killed 191 people and
injured about 2000 others, including American citizens. A bag
containing detonation caps was found outside a train station through which
all the bombed trains had left or had passed through. On March 17,
digital images of fingerprints found on the bag were transmitted to the FBI
and run through their AFIS database of fingerprints. When latent print
#17 was run, the database produced 20 possible matches. FBI Senior
Print Examiner Terry Green then manually compared the potential matches and
found a 100% match with the fourth ranked print on the AFIS list. The
FBI has long claimed that fingerprint identification is infallible. A top
FBI fingerprint official had testified to a “zero error rate.”
Two other FBI print examiners purportedly confirmed Green's match. The
source of the matching print corresponded to the left index finger of an
Oregon attorney named Brandon Mayfield. It is suspected that
Mayfield's Muslim religious beliefs and his activities as a lawyer
influenced the match.
On April 2, the FBI sent a letter to Spanish authorities reporting the
match. On April 13, the Forensic Science Division of Spanish National
Police responded that the purported match was “conclusively negative.” On April 21, a representative of the FBI Latent Print Unit flew to Madrid
and met with ten members of the same Division.
On May 6, the federal government applied for warrants to arrest Mayfield as
a material witness and search his home, office, and personal vehicles. It represented that at the meeting with the Spaniards, the Spaniards felt
satisfied with the FBI's print match. However, that was not the
Spaniards' interpretation. The Spaniards later stated that at the
conclusion of the meeting they refused to validate the FBI's finding and
maintained there was no match. The federal government's warrant
affidavits also mentioned that Mayfield had represented a Jeffrey Battle in
Oct. 2002 in a child custody matter, noting that Battle had been
subsequently arrested and convicted as a member of the Portland 7 on federal
terrorism charges.
Mayfield was arrested the same day, May 6. Prior to his arrest, his
home had been secretly searched under provisions of the U.S. Patriot Act. The intruders had aroused his family's suspicion by bolting the wrong lock
on the door and leaving a footprint that did not match any family member. Following Mayfield's arrest, FBI agents seized many personal belongings
including what they termed “Spanish documents” – apparently Spanish homework
by one of Mayfield's sons.
On May 20 it became known that the Spanish police identified an Algerian as
the source of the latent fingerprint. Mayfield was released the same
day. The FBI then appeared to blame the mismatch on not having the
highest resolution of the fingerprint. Subsequently the FBI determined that
the print was of “no value for identification purposes.” This point is
difficult to understand since the FBI used it to identify Mayfield, and the
Spanish police used it to identify an Algerian. Evidence indicated
that the FBI simply overlooked discrepancies between the fingerprint sent to
them and that of Mayfield. [3/08]
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References: Champion,
MSNBC
Posted in:
Victims of the State,
Oregon Cases, False
Fingerprint Evidence
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