Japan: Court Acquits Man Who Spent 46 Years on Death Row
A Japanese court on Thursday acquitted Iwao Hakamada — an 88-year-old former professional boxer sentenced to death in 1968 for a 1966 quadruple murder and arson — after it acknowledged multiple fabrications of evidence....
Facts
- A Japanese court on Thursday acquitted Iwao Hakamada — an 88-year-old former professional boxer sentenced to death in 1968 for a 1966 quadruple murder and arson — after it acknowledged multiple fabrications of evidence.[1]
- Hakamada was convicted of murdering his company manager and three of his family members and setting fire to their home. He was released in 2014 pending retrial and served his sentence at home after a DNA test cast doubt on the reliability of his conviction.[2][3][4]
- Central to the retrial were five pieces of bloodstained clothes found in a container in 1967. The prosecutors used the red stains on the clothes as evidence to implicate Hakamada, while the defense accused investigators of a set-up.[5]
- Hakamada initially denied the charges but confessed to the crimes following what he later described as brutal police coercion and interrogation that included beatings. He has maintained his innocence since.[6][7]
- On Thursday, Presiding Judge Koshi Kunii said that Hakamada's confession had been 'forced by inflicting physical and mental pain,' ruling that the blood-stained clothes had been planted by police 'to ensure his conviction.'[8]
- Guinness World Records recognizes Hakamada — who spent 46 years on death row — as the world's longest-serving death row inmate. He is the fifth death row inmate to be declared innocent in a retrial in Japan — the only industrialized democracy outside of the US to retain capital punishment.[9][2]
Sources: [1]Guardian, [2]Al Jazeera, [3]CNN, [4]Time, [5]CBS, [6]BBC News, [7]Associated Press, [8]The Mainichi and [9]The Japan Times.
Narratives
- Narrative A, as provided by NBC and Amnesty International USA. A man endured wrongful imprisonment and severe physical and mental trauma for almost half a century for a crime he didn't commit. Though this verdict recognizes Hakamada's innocence and gives him his freedom back, it also reminds us of the irreversible harm caused by the cruelty of capital punishment. Japan must take steps to abolish the death penalty and lower hurdles for retrials to prevent this tragedy from happening again.
- Narrative B, as provided by The Asahi Shimbun and Nippon.Com. Japan has retained the death penalty as punishment for atrocious, extremely serious, and tragic crimes to bring justice to the bereaved families of victims and deter homicides. This tool of criminal justice serves an important function as a deterrent in society. Moreover, Japan hasn't executed anyone since July 2022, which shows that the death penalty is exercised only in the rarest of rare cases.
- Narrative C, as provided by CNN and The Japan Times. Hakamada's case exposes the flaws in Japan's notoriously slow-paced criminal justice system. People are forced to confess under duress through long periods of police detention and violent interrogation — by prosecutors who seek to convict suspects via threats, manipulation, and fake forensic evidence to avoid hurting their career statistics. Japan's legal system — which allows inhumane treatment of detainees and has a low threshold for admitting retrials — is in dire need of reform.
- Narrative D, as provided by Outlook India and The Asia. Justice delayed is justice denied. While there may be arguments for and against the death penalty, the fact is the real culprit is still at large. The establishment spent considerable time, energy, and money to prove Hakamada guilty. If he's proven innocent and gets to walk free after fighting a court battle for four decades, who killed his boss and his family? This case must be reopened to bring justice to the deceased.
