Innocents Abroad -- and in South Carolina and Texas

As I drove home from work on Thursday, I listened to a story reported by the BBC's The World about tourist extortion by police in Cancun, Mexico. Scott and Michelle Fischbach form Minnesota were concluding their holiday on the Yucatan, when police pulled them over and demanded $300 in cash. They paid it. Seemed the wise thing to do. Michelle, a Minnesota State Senator, explained, "Well, it was pretty intimidating. I mean, it was three police officers. It was dark, it was late. We were in foreign country. None of us in the car spoke Spanish, and it was rather intimidating and so we felt like we didn't have a whole lot of choice."

Senator Fischbach also related that upon returning to Minnesota, she wrote a letter to Cancun officials reporting the incident. Since then, they've answered, sending her an apology and a check for $300.

I thought of other cases in the news of the innocent being victimized by authorities. Most of them didn't get such a positive and prompt response. Matt Kelley at change.org reported this week that "the South Carolina pardon board voted unanimously to clear the names of two men executed in 1915 for a murder they may not have committed. The men -- Meeks and Thomas Griffin -- were great uncles of syndicated radio talk show host Tom Joyner (left), who sought the pardons after learning last year about the men's story."

Meanwhile, in Texas, the controversy over the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham continues. It seems obvious in light of evidence and expert analysis reported by David Grann in the New Yorker that Willingham was innocent when he was executed, and that Perry had been so informed prior to the execution. But the machinery of death in Texas remains in denial.

As I approached my home, mulling over the three cases, the sad reality struck me: the falsely accused might have a better chance in Mexico than in the United States. Or maybe justice has to do with being a Senator or the relative of a celebrity--though the gentlemen in South Carolina surely would have wished for the family's celebrity to have arrive much sooner.