May 31, 2004
(Updated) A Pair Of Post-Mortems On The Mayfield Investigation
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
In last Friday's edition, the Portland Tribune provided the general summary of what, at that point, was known about the various elements of the investigation into Brandon Mayfield, including the fingerprint "evidence," the doubts of Spanish authorities, and the question of who was leaking information about the case despite a judge's gag order.
Today's Sunday Oregonian offers a much more detailed piece on all of these same elements.
In essence, the Oregonian article is the overall narrative of what we've heard before, but fleshed out with a number of new specifics, including the perspectives -- both now and at the time -- of many of the various parties involved in the investigation.
So this is mainly a pointer to these two pieces. But the one new revelation in the Oregonian article glaring enough to pass along here is that when the FBI finally got around to requesting access to the original fingerprint evidence (after having worked only with a less-than-optimal digital scan of the print in question), it was revealed that it had been destroyed during its original processing, of all things.
Update
Today's Oregonian has a kind of point/counterpoint regarding use of law enforcement tools such as the PATRIOT Act and the material-witness statute as is pertains to two local cases: That of the Portland 6/7, and that of Brandon Mayfield.
Update
There's also an Associated Press article out of Kansas (where Mayfield has relatives), which opens with this:
Brandon Mayfield, the Oregon lawyer wrongfully imprisoned this month in connection with terrorist bombings in Spain, said his ordeal underscored a warning he has sounded since his days as a law student at Washburn University.
At Washburn in 1996 and 1997, Mayfield said, an interest in constitutional law spurred him to write a paper cautioning against attacks on personal rights and privileges. He titled the paper "Liberty" - what Mayfield lost after the FBI linked him to the March 11 bombings and held him as a material witness for two weeks.
"One of the messages of the paper was you have to protect people even if the majority doesn't agree with them, provided they aren't breaking the law," he said Sunday. "That this happened to me was kind of ironic in that sense."
It then just gives its own very summarized recap and reports that Mayfield "has been conducting numerous media interviews in hopes of raising awareness about religious profiling and erosion of personal rights."