Mexico Defends Handling of Crash

Authorities on both sides of the Mexican border say the fatal weekend car crash after which two men from Orange County were held despite their injuries illustrates a harsh truth that too few tourists understand: Mexico is a foreign country with laws much different from those Americans take for granted.

The single-car crash, which occurred early Saturday morning near Rosarito Beach, renewed familiar criticisms of Mexican legal protocol and sparked outrage among the victims’ families and friends who objected that the two injured men had to post bonds before they could be taken to American hospitals.

“We’ve been going down there for years. We never thought it was a dangerous place,” said Ted Sawyer Jr., a friend of the car’s driver, who died. But Saturday’s incident has led him to believe “They have no respect for human life down there, at least not American life. . . . The whole legal system is corrupt.”

Yet despite calls for change in Mexican policy, many experts say the biggest problem for American tourists is not corruption, but a fundamental misunderstanding of their rights under the Mexican judicial system.

“When people from the U.S. go into Mexico, they think they have the rights they have in the U.S.,” said San Diego Police Sgt. Bob Lopez, the department’s liaison to Mexico. “They fail to realize that they are in a different country and the laws are different. It’s hard for them to understand.”

The two injured men, San Francisco biologist Kevin Lewand, Jr., 30, and Newport Beach real estate broker Barry Walshe, 31, were each held on $11,000 bond.

Lewand’s family posted the bail so he could be treated in San Diego for critical injuries sustained in the crash. He was listed in serious but stable condition at Scripps-Mercy Hospital in San Diego Tuesday night, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Walshe was detained for 48 hours--first in a Mexican jail and then in a Tijuana hospital under police guard--before his release Monday morning.

Keith Takabayashi, 31, of Newport Beach died in the crash. The three men had attended Foothill High School in Santa Ana.

Despite testimony from the two survivors that Takabayashi had been at the wheel, Mexican prosecutors said the others were held because they had not determined which was the driver. At a news conference in Tijuana on Tuesday, officials from the Baja California state attorney general’s office said they had determined that Takabayashi was the driver.

Two Survivors Could Face Charges

Prosecutors said they believe speed and alcohol were factors in the crash, and announced that empty beer bottles had been found in the vehicle. Lewand and Walshe may yet face charges in Mexico if there is any evidence that they contributed to Tokabayashi’s death, the authorities said. An autopsy report is pending.

Sawyer, 31, of Newport Beach, said Tokabayashi was not drunk when he drove Lewand and Walshe home. Sawyer, the owner of the Jeep, decided to stay out later in Rosarito Beach while the other three returned to a home owned by Lewand’s family. He learned of the crash the following morning.

“Keith had a beer or two at the most,” Sawyer said of Takabayashi, his best friend. “I would trust the guy with my life. That’s why we gave him the keys.”

Mexican officials defended the bail requirements for Lewand and Walshe.

“The word bail is not to be confused with corruption. If Americans come down here and do things they can’t do in their own country, they must follow Mexican law,” said Alfredo Arenas, head of the international liaison unit for the attorney general’s office of the state of Baja.

The detention of the two survivors highlights a key difference between U.S. and Mexican law, experts say.

Mexico’s legal system does not guarantee the same presumption of innocence offered by U.S. criminal law. After an incident in which people or property are injured, prosecutors can hold people for up to 48 hours while they attempt to determine what happened and who is at fault.

Lewand and Walshe were not treated differently from any citizen from anywhere, said Juan Jose, a Mexican attorney who works as an international case coordinator for the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office.

“Under Mexican law, you cannot just leave and wait for a subpoena later. That is not how the system works,” Jose said.

That can translate into a raw deal for Americans, said U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon).

“I think it’s a very unfair policy that Americans don’t have the right to go home for medical care,” Hunter said. “They have the right to keep you in Mexico and that means keeping you from the lifesaving medical capability that exists in the U.S. Everybody who goes down there needs to understand that risk.”

Hunter said he plans to raise the issue this morning when he and other members of Congress talk to Mexican officials at a previously scheduled meeting.

Yet even as Americans often overestimate their legal protections in Mexico, border town officials say that many tourists also bring a reckless attitude over the border, behaving and partying in ways they wouldn’t dare in the United States.

“The normal attitude changes like Mr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as they enter the no-man’s land of Mexico,” Arenas said.

Arenas, who is also the former director of tourism for Baja, said he believes the change in attitude has a lot to do with the way Mexicans are perceived in the United States--and an assumption that if Americans do get into trouble they will be able to buy their way out.

“They think it’s party land,” Arenas said. But just like in the United States there are laws that prevent narcotics sales, driving under the influence, public drunkenness, and driving without a seat belt, he said.

Times staff writer Tony Perry contributed to this report.