The beauty of Mexican justice
There she was. Laura Zúñiga Huizar, the former preschool teacher who was crowned Miss Hispanoamerican two months ago in Bolivia. To the beauty queen’s left were four men suspected of being gang members. To her right, three other men arrested by Jalisco (México) state police at a military checkpoint in Zapopan, Jalisco, just outside Guadalajara.
In front of the eight suspects, the evidence seized was spread out on a table. Guns, ammo and $53,300 in U.S. bills.
Zúñiga, who finished second in the México’s Nuestra Belleza (Our Beauty) pageant in Monterrey in September, didn’t look like a happy camper Tuesday as she was paraded in front of the media. No smile, no body-clinging evening gown, no wave of the hand. Just a head hung down, with her long locks of hair obscuring most of her face.
The 23-year-old Zúñiga (she will turn 24 on Jan. 3), who was crowned Miss Sinaloa in July, has apparently turned from being a role model to being an accused criminal. Somehow, when you’re charged with a crime and made to pose in front of the media it’s hard to say that you’re innocent until being found guilty.
That, however, is the criminal justice system in México.
Imagine if the United States borrowed this style of criminal justice.
1 — The O.J. Simpson jurors would have probably had him locked up and thrown the key away. Imagine O.J. being marched out in front of an international media frenzy in handcuffs. And right there in front of him is a table holding a knit cap and gloves.
2 — What if actor/actress (choose from various celebrities) has been picked up for driving his/her Bentley into a grove a tress off Mulholland Drive while under the influence. What a field day the paparrazi would have!
3 — Bernard L. Madoff has been accused of swindling $50 billion in a gigantic Ponzi scheme whose victims include some of the richest people in the world, in addition to retirees with a modesto nest egg. Perhaps Madoff, who is not under arrest but had been told he can’t leave New York, should be paraded in front of photos of those whose lives he has shattered. Perhaps those victims could be shown aiming at him with guns, knives, arrows, frying pans and other weapons of mass destruction.
