Michael Scofield is a law-abiding man who takes extreme measures to save his older brother Lincoln Burrows from the electric chair. Believing Lincoln to be wrongly convinced for killing Terrence Steadman, the brother of the Vice President of the United States Caroline Reynolds, and with Lincoln's execution date fast approaching, Michael commits a bank robbery and surrenders peacefully in order to be sent to Fox River State Penitentiary to break out with his brother.Michael is a structural engineer by training and as such has a thorough understanding of building design, construction and the weaknesses therein. His firm retrofitted Fox River, so he has inside information into its design. He has made elaborate plans with many steps to them, and seemingly thought of every contingency in order to free Lincoln. He has tattooed important information about his plans on his body, embedded in artwork that covers his arms and whole torso.In prison he makes friends with his cellmate, Fernando Sucre and develops feelings for the sympathetic prison doctor, Sara Tancredi.Background: Michael has been clinically diagnosed with low latent inhibition, which makes him unable to block out peripheral information, allowing him to take in every minute detail around him. He also has a very high IQ and is theoretically a creative genius, according to a psychiatrist.Michael has their mother's last name, Lincoln has their father's. She died of a brain aneurysm brought on by a brain tumor when Michael was 11 and Lincoln was 15.Michael feels indebted to his brother because Lincoln was his guardian after their mother died. They bounced around different foster homes, not always together. Lincoln would leave origami cranes for Michael as a sign that he was watching over him. Michael continues the practice as an adult.Lincoln borrowed $90,000 to send Michael to college, telling him it was their mother's inheritance. Michael went on to earn a Bachelor's and Master's in Civil Engineering from Loyola University in Chicago.Because their father, Aldo Burrows, left them when they were young, Lincoln is Michael's only family.Michael was born on October 10, 1974.