FBI's handling of fingerprint case criticized
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And the FBI's explanation for the Mayfield bungle — that agents relied on a "substandard" photograph of the Madrid fingerprint — is being contradicted by an international fingerprint expert hired by federal public defenders representing Mayfield.
The clarity of a photo of the Madrid print, lifted from a plastic bag of detonators found in a stolen van near a train station after the bombings, is good and no competent examiner should have called it a match, said Allan Bayle, who worked for Scotland Yard for 25 years.
The most basic features of the print — known as cores and deltas — did not match Mayfield's, said Bayle, who recently studied the images. He said he can't understand how the FBI claimed to have found more than 15 unique points common to each print.
"It's flawed on all levels," said Bayle in a rare public disagreement among fingerprint experts. He called the FBI's original analysis "horrendous."
Court records show that retired FBI agent John Massey, who worked on the Madrid case, was reprimanded three times by the FBI between 1969 and 1974 for errors, including twice making false fingerprint identifications.
The FBI would not comment over the weekend on the background of Massey.
The bureau has promised an independent investigation into the Mayfield case, which has shattered the FBI fingerprint lab's image of infallibility.
Problems with the FBI's fingerprint analysis were apparent even before Mayfield was arrested May 6.
Spanish police found fingerprints on a plastic bag of detonators on the day of the March 11 bombings, which killed 191 and injured about 2,000.
A digital photograph of the fingerprints was later given to the FBI within a week of the bombings, and it was analyzed by Massey and the others by early April.
The FBI ran the print through its computer system and the examiners made the match to Mayfield. His prints were on file because he had been arrested as a juvenile and had served in the Army.
However, Spanish police didn't agree with the FBI's match.
So Terry Green, one of the FBI examiners who made the initial identification, went to talk to Spanish police on April 21 and — without looking at the original print — concluded that his analysis was better because he had conducted a more detailed analysis of the print.
However, on May 20 Spanish authorities announced that they had matched the fingerprint to an Algerian, Ouhnane Daoud. A Spanish judge has issued a warrant for his arrest.
At that point, a federal judge released Mayfield after two weeks of detention.
The FBI then sent two other examiners to Spain who were shown Daoud's prints and the plastic bag from the crime scene.
After reporting back, their supervisors concluded the image they had relied on earlier was substandard.
According to an affidavit in federal court in Portland, an FBI fingerprint examiner told an expert hired by Mayfield that the original print no longer exists.
Bayle said that sometimes original prints are damaged or destroyed when examiners try to lift them from materials. But in the Madrid case, investigators first captured a digital photograph that was good enough to make an identification, he said. Bayle, who has worked on such terrorism-related cases as the 1988 Pan Am Lockerbie bombing, has been a critic of the FBI's training program.
After calling the print from the plastic bag a "100 percent identification" of Mayfield in early May, the FBI said last week that the fingerprint image was not good enough to make any identification. The FBI said the problem with the image is that there are lines that could be caused by creases in the bag or by an overlay of a second fingerprint.
However, Bayle said that a little overlap in the image doesn't prevent it from being used in identification.
The FBI said in the same statement, there was a "remarkable number of points in similarity between Mr. Mayfield's prints and the print details in the images submitted by the FBI."
Massey, a retired FBI examiner hired to verify the match, had been reprimanded for shoddy fingerprint work early in his career. He was reprimanded for erroneously identifying fingerprints in June 1969, for erroneously identifying incoming prints as being on file in November 1970, and for erroneously identifying two sets of prints as being identical in March 1974. Massey's disciplinary records came to light shortly after his 1998 testimony helped to convict a Virginia man, Richard Deon Russell, of drug dealing.
Shortly after the conviction, prosecutors turned over the records to Russell's lawyer, who was appealing the conviction. His case was eventually overturned for an unrelated reason.
Telephone calls to the Massey family were not returned.
Little information is available on the backgrounds of Green and others who identified the print as Mayfield's.
Mayfield's lawyer said if Spanish authorities had not identified another suspect, Mayfield might still be in custody.
"Mr. Mayfield could have been indicated and faced capital prosecution," said his lawyer, federal public defender Christopher Schatz.
Ken Armstrong contributed to this report.
David Heath: 206-464-2136; dheath@seattletimes.com