Jailed for conspiracy in Madrid terror bombing
The U.S. government agreed Wednesday to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit filed by an Oregon lawyer who was arrested and jailed for two weeks in 2004 after the FBI bungled a fingerprint match and mistakenly linked him to a terrorist attack in Spain.
Under the terms of the settlement filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Portland, the government also issued an unusual apology to Brandon Mayfield for the suffering caused by his wrongful arrest and imprisonment. It acknowledged that the ordeal was deeply upsetting to Mayfield and his family.
Mayfield will be able to continue pursuing his legal challenge to the constitutionality of the Patriot Act anti-terrorism law, which was used to obtain his personal records while he was under investigation.
The payment is a clear embarrassment for the FBI, which arrested Mayfield as a material witness in May 2004 after FBI examiners erroneously linked him to a partial fingerprint on a bag of detonators found after terrorists bombed commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people. The bureau compounded its error by stridently resisting the conclusions of the Spanish National Police, which notified the FBI that the fingerprint did not belong to Mayfield three weeks before he was arrested.
The case has become a potent symbol for civil liberties advocates who argue that it shows how easily the government can abuse its powers to detain alleged terrorism suspects under relaxed standards of probable cause.
A report released in March by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine found that while Mayfield’s religion was not a factor in his initial identification, it contributed to the FBI’s reluctance to re-examine its conclusions after challenges from Spanish police.
Every criticism of the foolhardiness of Homeland Insecurity, the Patriot Act and Bush’s War on Terror — came to pass in this case. Government hacks screwed up. They refused to admit they screwed up. They denied they screwed up.
It took a lawsuit and a separate investigation before a citizen was restored his rights and dignity and compensated for his injury.
It’s this type of disproportionate law suit that makes the USA the butt of lawsuit jokes.
Actually, this is one case where I feel the award is justified. Being arrested as a potential terrorist has the possibility of preventing you from ever being able to work again, at least it might be an uphill battle. Even if you’re found innocent or never charged with a crime it is a stigma that will stay with you the rest of your life. It would make sense for an award to be all those earnings you could miss out on. Being accused of a crime and imprisoned is also an entirely humiliating and dehabilitating experience which potentially has long term mental and physical consequences, should those subjected not receive compensation?
That said, in this specific case the accused was a lawyer and one who beat the government so they could potentially do quite well as this is advertising. Still, to be equal and fair it makes sense that the award be similar to that which would be appropriate for someone who would be negatively impacted.
Finally, these suits might make officials think twice about what they’re doing in the future. With all the new found powers of our government it might not be such a bad thing for them to learn they still need to act responsibly or they too will get burned.
1. Exactly the opposite of what you said.
1. We’re not getting the entire story here. There’s definitely more to this.
#2 wrote
“Finally, these suits might make officials think twice about what they’re doing in the future.”
Unfortunately, since it is not their money, I am not sure how much of an impact this type of judgment will make to these officials. Here in Los Angeles (which admittedly has more in common with Mars than a normal city) , city officials commonly settle lawsuits for large sums of money with little investigation of the case. A recent case where a 2.7 million dollar settlement was awarded to a firefighter that was fed dog food as a prank was so outrageous that the public and the mayor got involved to stop it.
See:
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/10425845/detail.html
Steve
#2, Ben
I disagree. Those who drive snafus like this don’t care what it cost. It isn’t their money being paid out. There are many professionals in law enforcement that do care, and, unfortunately, it is their reputations that will suffer. Those at the top that tried to gain credit for the arrest, will quickly put it down to sloppy police work. When the police end up actually having to spend some time in jail for negligently making an innocent person spend time in jail, then we might actually see some justice. Little would make me happier then to see Gonzales spend some time in prison for some of the lives he ruined.
In the grand scheme of things it’s mice nutts. There are $8B of unaccounted tax dollars (lost) in the Iraq rebuilding effort alone – pfft, disappeared.
Folks, it’s the largest now and will be the larest plundering of the US Treasury in history.
It should’ve been a $200M settlement. And heads most certainly should’ve rolled.
The majority’s willingness to accept such incidents as inevitable collateral damage (tacit acceptance as can be inferred from silence) is infuriating.
Is that 2M tax-free. Ah the irony.
This is in line with paying Richard Jewell for saying he was the Olympics bomber.
Addressing government malpractice should be as easy and direct as it is with medicine. Yes, not all medical malpractice cases are warranted. But US medicine is the best in the world because, correct results do matter, and the system has various feedback loops to inform medical practitioners in this regard.
Law and the US Gov doesn’t have this frequent feedback to inform and motivate Law and US Gov practice improvements. In fact Law and US Gov practice are static because results are spun rather objectively reported. No system can function well if there is no easy method of correcting malpractices.
#5 & 6: I understand it’s not their money in that it was not created by selling a product or service but instead through taxation but at the same time they will be the ones who need to live within a tighter budget after paying this out so it serves the same purpose. If it happens enough one would hope the taxpayers would revolt and thow the goons out. Saying simply that it’s not their money so they don’t care is a poor argument. In a corporation which looses a lawsuit because someone screwed up it’s not that person’s money either but we would still say it might deter the company from screwing up again.