CLPEX Chat Board

Here's a new article regarding Mayfield:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/ ... d06ww.html

At the bottom is a link (PDF) of the Unclassified Executive Summary "A Review of the FBI's Handling of the Brandon Mayfield Case."

The direct link is:
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0601/final.pdf

On a first reading, it hits some of the same points as the Stacey report.

I think the OIG inspectors underplay the confirmation bias issue -- they assume that because Moses confirmed the ID, that it means that the FBI examiners were not affected by knowing who made the IDs or by an internal culture that opposed dissent. I think Moses himself has said that the reputation and prestige of the FBI in genreal, and the folks who signed its report may have had some subconsious effect on him.

It also discounts the "pressure of high profile cases" theory from the Stacey report, noting that many of the FBI's cases are "high profile". And again, I think the report discounts the internal and external psychological factors affecting the examiner. (I don't recall seeing anyone with a psychology background among the investigators or authors of the report.)

The discussion of the effect of IAFIS was interesting as well as discussion of when the FBI learned about Mayfield's background and factors that made him seem a more plausible suspect than if the prints had belonged to a socccer mom from Nebraska.

Again hits the same point as the Stacey report discussing blind verfication, at least in some cases.