While an Ohio teenager who faces a beating for committing a crime in Singapore makes headlines worldwide, Orem resident Hal Huntsman endured peculiarities of a foreign legal system without fanfare - and initially without help from the United States.
Huntsman spent eight and a half months in squalid Taiwanese detention centers and prison for a crime he did not commit. He was convicted of manslaughter in a traffic accident that left a pedestrian dead. An appellate court eventually overturned the conviction under late-hour influence from Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah."Different countries have many different ways of doing things. Sometimes it doesn't make sense from the Western perspective, but that doesn't matter there," said Huntsman, 32.
But in Michael Peter Fay's case in Singapore, Americans, including President Clinton and former President George Bush, are trying to make it matter. Both have, or will, make personal appeals to Singaporean authorities to spare Fay six lashes with a bamboo cane. The 18-year-old Ohio man admitted to spray painting cars, throwing eggs and destroying traffic signs. Some argue the punishment is deserved; others say it's cruel and inhumane.
Although Huntsman and Fay's cases differ, both illustrate how Americans can become tangled in a foreign country's legal system.
"I think, frankly, what happened to Hal is a whole lot worse. He was in prison for nearly a year," said Richard Wilkins, a Brigham Young University law professor and Huntsman's LDS bishop in Orem. Wilkins was instrumental in digging out the truth about Huntsman's accident.
Wilkins wonders where high-ranking governmental officials were when Huntsman was wrongfully incarcerated. He said he'd like to know Fay's political connections.
"Something is wrong in America when the president of the United States gets on the horn to talk about someone getting a swat on the behind who has admitted he's guilty and someone wrongly accused sits in a hellhole for nearly a year," he said.
Wilkins questions U.S. intervention in the Fay case. The United States' role, he said, should be to teach foreign judicial systems how to ascertain truth.
"Our fact-finding process is beyond compare," he said. "When you can't trust the fact finding to determine if someone's guilty or innocent, that's a whole different issue."
Shortly after Huntsman's incarceration, Wilkins and Huntsman's parents, Norm and LaRee, pleaded with many government agencies or private organizations to intervene.
Wilkins believes swift action would have freed Huntsman much sooner.