29 September 2024 :

The world's longest-serving death row prisoner was acquitted by a Japanese court on September 26, 2024, more than half a century after his 1968 murder conviction.
The Shizuoka District Court ruled that 88-year-old Iwao Hakamata was not guilty in a retrial obtained by the former boxer and his supporters a decade ago.
"The court finds the defendant innocent," judge Koshi Kunii said.
Hakamata's health is delicate and he was not present in court, but his 91-year-old sister Hideko, who often speaks for him, bowed deeply to Kunii several times.
Until he was freed in 2014 pending retrial, Hakamata had been on death row for 46 years after being convicted of killing his boss, the man's wife and their two teenage children.
But over the years, questions arose over fabricated evidence and coerced confessions, sparking scrutiny of Japan's justice system, which critics say holds suspects "hostage".
Hundreds of people had queued in the morning at the Shizuoka District Court, trying to secure a seat for the verdict in the murder saga that has gripped the nation.
"For so long, we have fought a battle that has felt endless," Hideko had told reporters in July.
"But this time, I believe it will be settled."
Japan is the only major industrialised democracy other than the United States to retain capital punishment, a policy that has broad public support.
Speaking to AFP in 2018, Hakamata underlined his ongoing battle to obtain an acquittal, saying he felt he was "fighting about every day".
"Once you think you can't win, there is no path to victory," he said.
Outside the court, Hakamata's supporters held flags and banners calling for a not-guilty verdict.
Although the Supreme Court upheld Hakamata's death sentence in 1980, his supporters fought for decades to have the case reopened.
A turning point came in 2014 when a retrial was granted on the grounds that prosecutors could have planted evidence, and Hakamata was released from prison.
Legal wrangling, including a pushback by prosecutors, meant it took until last year for the retrial to begin.
Hakamata initially denied having robbed and murdered the victims, but confessed following what he later described as a brutal police interrogation that included beatings.
Central to the trial was a set of blood-stained clothes found in a tank of miso – fermented soybean paste – a year after the 1966 murders, used as evidence to incriminate Hakamata.
The defence accused investigators of a set-up, as the red stains on the clothes were too bright, but prosecutors said their own experiments showed the colour was credible.
Hakamata's case is "just one of countless examples of Japan's so-called 'hostage justice' system", Teppei Kasai, Asia programme officer for Human Rights Watch, told AFP.
"Suspects are forced to confess through long and arbitrary periods of detention" and there is often "intimidation during interrogation", he said.

13 March 2024 :

A Japanese high court on March 12, 2024 overturned a lower court ruling sentencing the head of the Kudokai crime syndicate to death over four cases of attacks on ordinary citizens.
The Fukuoka High Court handed down a life sentence for 77-year-old Satoru Nomura, who heads the Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture-based gang.
Meanwhile, the court upheld the Fukuoka District Court's ruling of life imprisonment for Fumio Tanoue, 67, the gang's second-in-command.
The district court had found Nomura to be the mastermind behind all four attacks.
The high court, however, found him not guilty of his alleged collaboration in the fatal shooting of a former head of a fisheries cooperative in 1998. Presiding Judge Futoshi Ichikawa said he "cannot recognize Nomura's complicity through logical or empirical reasoning."
For the other three attacks, the high court recognized that both Nomura and Tanoue exerted significant decision-making power, concluding that the two conspired with other Kudokai members in the attacks.
The defense side claimed that Nomura was completely innocent.
Tanoue admitted to instructing Kudokai members to attack a nurse and a dentist but denied any intent to kill.
Prosecutors said there was nothing unreasonable with the lower court ruling, which concluded that the two had ordered the attacks, given that Nomura is at the very top of Kudokai.
After pleading not guilty at the lower court, Tanoue reversed his claim during the higher court hearing, saying that he alone instructed the two attacks. On this, the prosecutors said that his new statements cannot be trusted because he is likely to have changed his remarks to protect Nomura.
Nomura and Tanoue allegedly conspired with other Kudokai members to shoot and kill the former fisheries cooperative chief, then 70, in February 1998, as well as attack a former police chief inspector, the nurse and the dentist between 2012 and 2014.
When the district court handed down the death sentence in 2021, Nomura told the judge, "You'll regret the decision for the rest of your life."
Before delivering the main text of the high court's verdict on March 12, Ichikawa warned that Nomura might be ordered to leave the courtroom if he made any inappropriate remarks.
Nomura remained expressionless and stared directly at Ichikawa when the judge declared that the death sentence had been overturned.
In 2012, the Kudokai became the first gang to be designated as a specified dangerous crime syndicate in Japan, following a string of attacks on citizens and companies.
The Fukuoka Prefectural Police, meanwhile, pledged to be relentless in taking measures to eradicate the group, department head Tsuyoshi Iwashita said.

08 July 2024 :

A 39-year-old man was sentenced to death on July 2, 2024 for murdering an elderly woman and her son and robbing them at her residence in Oita Prefecture, southwestern Japan, in 2020.
During the trial at the Oita District Court, prosecutors sought the death penalty for Shoichi Sato, presenting evidence including DNA from the trunk of Sato's car that matched the female victim, Takako Yamana.
Sato's defense team, maintaining his innocence, said it filed an appeal with the Fukuoka High Court the same day.
In handing down the ruling, Presiding Judge Yasutaka Karashima said, "There is no reasonable explanation other than the convict committed the crime."
Footprints left at the crime scene matched the shape of Sato's feet as well, the judge also said.
In its closing argument, the defense pointed out that the analysis of bloodstains found in Sato's car revealed a DNA type that did not match either the two victims or Sato, insisting that someone else committed the crime.
According to the ruling, Sato fatally stabbed Yamana, a 79-year-old farmer, and her 51-year-old son Hiroyuki, a postal worker, multiple times on Feb. 2, 2020, at the house in Usa, stealing at least 54,000 yen ($330).
Police arrested Sato about a year and eight months after the incident.

25 January 2024 :

A Japanese man was convicted and sentenced to death on January 25, 2024 for the arson and killing of 36 people at famed anime studio Kyoto Animation in 2019, public broadcaster NHK said.
The deadly attack on the Kyoto-based studio, better known as KyoAni, had sent shockwaves not only through Japan where violent crime is rare, but also overseas given the studio's far-reaching fan base and the audacity of the crime.
Shinji Aoba, now 45, had set the studio ablaze by dousing the entrance area of the building with petrol, also injuring 32.
Aoba himself suffered heavy burns and underwent intensive treatment for nearly a year.
Media have reported that Aoba held a grudge against the studio, known for the series "Violet Evergarden" and other popular works, believing that it had plagiarised his novel, an allegation that KyoAni has denied.
A pillar of Japanese pop culture, anime has become a major cultural export, winning fans around the world.

18 January 2024 :

A Japanese court sentenced a 21-year-old man to death on January 18, 2024 for the 2021 murder of two and arson, in the first case of capital punishment being given to an offender who was a minor at the time of the crime but whose name has been revealed under a 2022 revision of the Juveniles Law.
The defendant, Yuki Endo, was 19 at the time of the attack in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture, in central Japan.
The law change in April 2022 allows media to reveal the identities of 18- and 19-year-old offenders once they are indicted.
The media was previously prohibited from reporting names, ages, occupations, residences and appearances or publishing photographs of minors under 20.In handing down the ruling at Kofu District Court, Presiding Judge Jun Mikami recognized Endo's full criminal liability and said his age "should not be a reason to avoid the death penalty.
"Endo stabbed the 55-year-old father and 50-year-old mother of a female acquaintance at their home in Kofu on Oct. 12, 2021, causing them to bleed to death, according to the ruling.
He also injured the acquaintance's younger sister and set fire to the house, the ruling said.
The acquaintance was not injured.Under Japan's Penal Code, arson of a dwelling in which a person is present can also be punished by death.In the trial, Endo said he committed the crimes as the acquaintance, who attended the same high school, refused to go on a date with him, which made him feel "desperate and angry."
He also said he was discontent with his relationship with his parents.Throughout the trial, he offered no apologies for his acts and denied any intention to appeal the ruling, saying he did not want to return to normal life.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, saying the defendant was fully accountable in light of his deliberateness and planning of the criminal acts.
They said the acquaintance and her younger sister suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
The acquaintance took part in the trial through a video link but said she was "too afraid" to speak of her feelings in front of Endo.
In her statement read out by the prosecutors, she said, "The culprit will come to kill me if he has the chance to go outside. I want him to be never allowed outside, and I want a guarantee that he will not."
The defense team had called for a lighter sentence, arguing the defendant had a diminished capacity at the time of the attack.
Since 1983, when the Supreme Court set its standard for giving the death penalty, there have been seven cases in which the death penalty has been finalized for offenders who committed a crime as a minor.
The so-called Nagayama standard -- which takes into account factors such as the number of victims, brutality and social impact of the crime -- has been used for decades in determining whether to apply the death sentence.
Aside from allowing the media to reveal the names of 18- and 19-year-old offenders, the revised Juveniles Law implemented in April 2022 also expanded the range of crimes in which such offenders are referred to prosecutors from family courts and tried as adults.
The revision came in tandem with Japan lowering the age of adulthood from 20 to 18 by revising the Civil Code, opening up new freedoms and responsibilities for 18- and 19-year-olds.

17 November 2024 :

The Japanese government on November 14, 2024 ruled out abolishing the death penalty, rejecting calls by domestic legal experts for a review amid international pressure to end executions.
"The government thinks it is not appropriate to abolish" the death penalty, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a press conference.
"The death penalty is unavoidable for a person who has committed an extremely grave and atrocious crime."
On November 13, a 16-member panel, including a former top prosecutor, a former top police official and academics, proposed to the Cabinet and parliament the establishment of a conference body to discuss whether to maintain the death penalty.
Citing the case of Iwao Hakamata, an 88-year-old man who spent nearly half a century on death row before being acquitted in a recent retrial over a 1966 quadruple murder, the panel's report said, "Once a mistake occurs, it takes a very long time to correct it."
The panel, set up in February with the Japan Federation of Bar Associations serving as its secretariat, also said abolishing the death penalty system is an international trend.
Japan and the United States are the only Group of Seven industrialized nations still handing down capital sentences.
The European Union, which bars countries with the death penalty from joining, has been vocal in calling on Japan to review its stance.
At the end of 2023, 144 countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practice, according to the human rights organization Amnesty International, which has also urged Japan to end the system.

02 October 2024 :

Newly appointed Justice Minister Hideki Makihara said on October 2, 2024 that abolishing the death penalty in Japan, where there have been no executions in over two years, would be "inappropriate" as the public largely considers it "unavoidable for heinous crimes."
Speaking at a press conference, Makihara added that since taking a human life is an extremely serious matter, it should be approached with utmost care.
Amid heightened interest in the retrial process following the recent acquittal of Iwao Hakamata, 88, who spent nearly half a century on death row, Makihara stressed that "careful and thorough consideration from various perspectives is necessary."

17 April 2024 :

The Osaka District Court on April 15, 2024 dismissed a lawsuit by death row inmates that claimed same-day notifications of executions violate the Constitution — the first ruling of its kind.
The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit against the government in hopes of sparking a wider discussion on the rights of death row prisoners.
They also sought ¥22 million in compensation and plan to appeal to a higher court.
Presiding Judge Noriko Yokota said the social standing of the two plaintiffs — being death row inmates — doesn't allow them to avoid execution when they are notified.
Yokota also said the plaintiffs “are in a position to accept the execution according to the current legislation on death penalty.” She rejected their claim for compensation, saying it would practically nullify their death sentences.
The ruling did not state whether same-day notifications are constitutional or not.
The plaintiffs argued that notifying death row inmates an hour or two before their execution leaves them with no time to file a complaint and violates the right to due process guaranteed in Article 13 of the Constitution.
They said they are “living in hell” because they spend every day not knowing when they will be executed.
Yuko Shiota, an official at the Center for Prisoners’ Rights, said that in the past, death row inmates were given a few days prior notice of the execution. However, this was changed to same-day notifications because some inmates took their own lives after being told of the schedule, she said.
A key problem with the current policy, Shiota said, is cases in which individuals are wrongly sentenced to death and are in the process of seeking a retrial — which can be a lengthy process.
“If the person is notified several days in advance, the lawyer can go to see the inmate ... and they can file an appeal on grounds for human rights,” she said. “They would also have time to say goodbye to their family and friends.”
In one high-profile example, Iwao Hakamata had been on death row for more than 30 years over a 1966 murder case until the Tokyo High Court sent the case back to the district court for a retrial last year, raising the possibility that he will be exonerated. Hakamata was freed and the trial is currently underway at the Shizuoka District Court.
In Japan, there were 109 death row inmates as of the end of March. The most recent death row inmate to be executed, in July 2022, was Tomohiro Kato, who was convicted over a mass killing in Tokyo’s Akihabara district in 2008.