A Hell Of A Way To Become A Millionaire... Let The US Violate Your Rights

U.S. Will Pay $2 Million to Lawyer Wrongly Jailed

They probably shouldn't have done these things to a lawyer... especially if he was in good standing with his fellow ABA members. This entire incident calls into question the entire field of forensics that relies upon federal databases, especially those dealing with fingerprints. Hell, it calls into question--as has been the case in so many wrongful prosecutions over the decades since fingerprints began being used as "clues"--the entire psuedo-science of fingerprints as evidence. While the newer and more sophisticated software used to examine finger prints are more reliable, there have still been mistakes because of original data entry issues.

Still, I don't think I would have settled for $2 million because of the long time it took the government to come up with an apology. I would have charged a million a month.

The federal government agreed to pay $2 million Wednesday to an Oregon lawyer wrongly jailed in connection with the 2004 terrorist bombings in Madrid, and it issued a formal apology to him and his family.

The unusual settlement caps a two-and-a-half-year ordeal that saw the lawyer, Brandon Mayfield, go from being a suspected terrorist operative to a symbol, in the eyes of his supporters, of government overzealousness in the war on terrorism.

“The United States of America apologizes to Mr. Brandon Mayfield and his family for the suffering caused” by his mistaken arrest, the government’s apology began. It added that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which erroneously linked him to the Madrid bombs through a fingerprinting mistake, had taken steps “to ensure that what happened to Mr. Mayfield and the Mayfield family does not happen again.”

At an emotional news conference in Portland announcing the settlement, Mr. Mayfield said he and his wife, an Egyptian immigrant, and their three children still suffered from the scars left by the government’s surveillance of him and his jailing for two weeks in May 2004.

“The horrific pain, torture and humiliation that this has caused myself and my family is hard to put into words,” said Mr. Mayfield, an American-born convert to Islam and a former lieutenant in the Army.

“The days, weeks and months following my arrest,” he said, “were some of the darkest we have had to endure. I personally was subject to lockdown, strip searches, sleep deprivation, unsanitary living conditions, shackles and chains, threats, physical pain and humiliation.”