Capital punishment in Japan

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Tokyo Detention House, which houses one of Japan's seven execution chambers

Capital punishment is legal in Japan. The only crimes for which capital punishment is statutory are homicide and treason. Between 1946 and 1993, Japanese courts sentenced 766 people to death (including a small number from People's Republic of China, South Korea and Indonesia), 608 of whom were executed. The death penalty is ordinarily imposed in cases of multiple murders involving aggravating factors.^[1]

History

See also: Criminal punishment in Edo-period Japan

Beginning in about the fourth century, Japan became increasingly influenced by the Chinese judicial system, and gradually adopted a system of different punishments for different crimes, including the death penalty. However, beginning in the Nara period, cruel punishments and the death penalty were used less and less, likely as a result of the influence of Buddhist teachings, and the death penalty was phased out completely in the Heian period. The death penalty was not used for the next 300 years, until the Genpei War. During the following Kamakura period, capital punishment was widely used and methods of execution became increasingly cruel, and included burning, boiling and crucifixion, among many others. During the Muromachi period, even harsher methods of execution came into use, such as upside down crucifixion, impalement by spear, sawing, and dismemberment with oxen or carts. Even minor offenses could be punished by death, and family members and even neighbors could be punished along with the offender. These harsh methods, and liberal use of the death penalty, continued throughout the Edo period and into the early Meiji period, but due to the influence of Confucianism, offenses against masters and elders were increasingly punished much more harshly than offenses against those of lower rank. Torture was used to extract confessions. In 1871, as the result of a major reform of the penal code, the number of crimes punishable by death was decreased and excessively cruel torture and flogging were abolished. In 1873, another revision resulted in a further reduction in the number of crimes punishable by death, and methods of execution were restricted to beheading or hanging.^[2]

System

Sentencing guideline - Nagayama Standard

In Japan, the courts follow guidelines laid down in the trial of Norio Nagayama, a 19-year-old from a disadvantaged background, who committed four murders in 1968 and was finally hanged in 1997.

The supreme court of Japan, in imposing the death penalty, ruled that the death penalty may be imposed "inevitably" in consideration of the degree of criminal liability and balance of justice based on a nine-point set of criteria.^[3] Though technically not a precedent, this guideline has been followed by all subsequent capital cases in Japan.^[4] The nine criteria are as follows:

1. Degree of viciousness
2. Motive
3. How the crime was committed; especially the manner in which the victim was killed.
4. Outcome of the crime; especially the number of victims.
5. Sentiments of the bereaved family members.
6. Impact of the crime on Japanese society.
7. Defendant's age (in Japan, someone is a minor until the age of 20).
8. Defendant's previous criminal record.
9. Degree of remorse shown by the defendant.

Stays of execution

According to Article 475 of the 'Japanese Code of Criminal Procedure', the death penalty must be executed within six months after the failure of the prisoner's final appeal upon an order from the Minister of Justice. However, the period requesting retrial or pardon is exempt from this regulation. Therefore, in practice, the typical stay on death row is between five and seven years; a quarter of the prisoners have been on death row for over ten years. For several, the stay has been over 30 years (Sadamichi Hirasawa died of natural causes at the age of 95, after awaiting execution for 32 years^[5]).

Approval process

After the failure of the final appeal process to the Supreme Court of Japan, the entire records of trial are sent to the office of prosecution. Based on these records, the chief prosecutor of the office of prosecution compiles a report to the Justice Minister. This report is examined by the officer in the Criminal Investigation Bureau of Justice Ministry for the possibility of pardon and/or retrial as well as any possible legal issues which might require consideration before the execution is approved. This officer is usually from the office of prosecutors. Once satisfied, the officer will write an execution proposal, which has to go through the approval process of the Criminal Investigation Bureau, Parole Bureau and Correction Bureau. If the convict is certified to be mentally incapacitated during this process, the proposal is brought back to Criminal Investigation Bureau. The final approval is signed by the Minister of Justice. Once the final approval is signed, the execution will take place within about a week. By the regulation of penal code section 71, clause 2, the execution cannot take place on a national holiday, Saturday, Sunday, or between December 31 and January 2. The date of execution is kept secret, even to the family of the condemned and the family of the victim(s).

Death row

Japanese death row inmates are imprisoned inside the detention centers of Sapporo, Sendai, Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima and Fukuoka (despite the city having a high court, Takamatsu Detention Centre is not equipped with an execution chamber. Consequently, executions administered by the Takamatsu High Court are carried out in the Osaka detention center). Those on death row are not classified as prisoners by the Japanese justice system and the facilities they are held at are not referred to as prisons. Inmates lack many of the rights afforded to other Japanese prisoners. The nature of the regime they live under is largely up to the director of the Detention Center, but it is usually significantly harsher than normal Japanese prisons. Inmates are held under solitary confinement and are forbidden from communicating with their fellows. They are permitted two periods of exercise a week. They are not allowed televisions and may only possess three books.^[6] Prisoners are not allowed to exercise within their own cells.^[7] Prison visits, both by family members and legal representatives, are infrequent and closely supervised.^{[citation needed]}

Execution

Executions are carried out by hanging in a death chamber within the Detention Center. When a death order has been issued, the condemned prisoner is informed in the morning of his or her execution. The condemned is given a choice of the last meal. The prisoner's family and legal representatives are not informed until afterwards. Since December 7, 2007, the authorities have been releasing the names, natures of crime and ages of executed prisoners.^[8]

As of late January 2009, there were 95 people awaiting execution in Japan.^[9] Tsutomu Miyazaki and two others were hanged on June 17, 2008.^[10] A total of nine convicted murderers were executed in 2007.^[11] Three men were executed on August 23, 2007,^[12] four men were executed on December 25, 2006,^[13] one execution was carried out in 2005^[14] and two in 2004.^[1]

According to media reports, 4 death-row inmates were executed in Tokyo, Nagoya and Fukuoka in January 2009. A further 3 were hanged on July 31 bringing the total to 7 in 2009.^[15] Two inmates were executed in July 2010.^[16]

Death sentences for minors

Having signed both the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which forbid any execution for crimes committed under the age of 18, Japan sets the minimum age for capital punishment at 18 (Juvenile Law § 51). Although death sentences for minors (defined in Japan as those under age 20) are rare, those who commit capital crimes at age 18 or 19 may be legally sentenced to death.^[17]

Nine juvenile criminals have received death sentences that were finalized since 1966:^[18] Misao Katagiri, Kiyoshi Watanabe, Mitsuo Sasanuma, Fumio Matsuki, Sumio Kanno, Tsuneo Kuroiwa, Norio Nagayama, Teruhiko Seki and Takayuki Mizujiri. Seven of them have already been executed. Watanabe and Seki, both of whom killed four people when they were 19 years old, are still on death row.

The most recent juvenile death sentence was given to Takayuki Fukuda, passed by the Hiroshima High Court on April 22, 2008. A month after his 18th birthday he raped and killed a mother, along with murdering her baby.^[19][20] He appealed to the Supreme Court and is waiting for its final and conclusive judgment.^[21]

Public debate

Although the public has generally supported the death penalty, capital punishment is a contentious issue in Japan nonetheless. A 1999 government survey found that 79.3 percent of the public supported it. In 34 polls taken between 1953 and 1999, support for the death penalty has varied, although never having dropped below 50 percent. At a 2003 trial, a Tokyo prosecutor presented the court a petition with 76,000 signatures as part of his case for a death sentence.^[1]

During the late 1980s, four high-profile acquittals of death-row inmates after retrial "shook public confidence in the system and profoundly embarrassed the Ministry of Justice, which until then had believed that the execution of an innocent person was all but impossible".^[1] Between 1989 and 1993, four successive ministers of justice refused to authorize executions, which amounted to an informal moratorium. Until then, the groups campaigning to end capital punishment were marginal but they coalesced into a single umbrella organization called Forum 90. Unlike in the U.S., where a state's governor can issue a pardon for any state crime and the president can pardon a federal crime, in Japan, the Justice Minister has to sign death warrants. It is not uncommon for a Justice minister not to sign death warrants, some for political or religious convictions, others for personal dislike for signing death warrants. This has caused some debate in Japan, some^{[citation needed]} accusing those justice ministers of neglecting their public duty. For example, Seiken Sugiura, Minister of Justice between October 2005 and September 2006, and a follower of Pureland Buddhism, publicly stated on October 31, 2005 that he would not sign execution warrants. He said that "From the standpoint of the theory of civilizations, I believe that the general trend from a long-term perspective will be to move toward abolition." A few hours later, he retracted the statement, saying it represented his "feelings as an individual and (the comment) was not made in relation to the duties and responsibilities of a justice minister who must oversee the legal system". However, he never agreed to any executions as a Minister of Justice.

The Times claimed that the death penalty was effectively suspended on September 17, 2009 with the appointment of Keiko Chiba as Minister of Justice.^[22] However, no official policy statement was made in this regard. Chiba only stated that "I will cautiously handle (the cases) based on the duties of the justice minister."^[23] The Times' speculation was conclusively disproved when Chiba signed two death warrants and personally witnessed the execution.[2]

Support

Supporters say that capital punishment is applied infrequently and only to those who have committed the most extreme of crimes—a single act of murder does not attract the capital punishment without additional aggravating circumstances such as rape or robbery. In the 1956 debate, Japanese serial killer Genzo Kurita, who engaged in rape and necrophilia, was cited by the Diet as an example of a murderer whose crimes were atrocious enough to merit execution.^[24] However, it is more due to the rarity of extreme crimes in Japanese society rather than an unwillingness of the authorities to carry out executions that has caused so few executions to take place.^[1]

Since executions resumed in 1993, a rise in street crime during the 1990s, the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 and several high-profile murders^{[such as?]} have hardened attitudes amongst the public and the judiciary. Since 1999, there have been a series of cases in which criminals sentenced to life imprisonment have been given the death penalty after prosecutors successfully appealed to High courts.

On March 18, 2009, a district court sentenced to death two men for the murder of Rie Isogai.^[25] Fumiko Isogai, who lost her only child in this crime, launched a campaign to call for the death penalty on the three murderers in September 2007.^[26] Within ten days, her petition was signed by 100,000 citizens.^[27] She presented her petition for the death penalty with some 150,000 signatures to the District Public Prosecutors' Office of Nagoya on 23 October 2007.^[28] About 318,000 citizens had signed her petition by December 2008.^[26]

Although single murderers rarely face a death penalty in Japan, Takeshi Tsuchimoto, a criminal law scholar at Hakuoh University and former prosecutors of the Supreme Public Prosecutors' Office, expected that the recent trend toward harsher punishments, backed by the growing public support for capital punishment, would encourage the court to sentence Kanda and Hori to death.^[27] Major national newspapers published editorials in support of this unorthodox judgment on the premise that capital punishment is retained.^[29] The Asahi Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun wrote in editorials that the general public favored the judgment, and ^[29] the Nikkei lended his support to it.^[29] The Sankei Shimbun aggressively evaluated the judgment with a phrase "a natural and down-to-earth judgment of great significance."^[29][30] The Tokyo Shimbun expressed that capital punishment would be the inevitable sentence in consideration of the brutality of the murder and the pain that the victim's family felt.^[29] They also noted, however, that it would be difficult for citizen judges to determine whether death penalty would be appropriate in this kind of case under the lay judge system, which will be started in May 2009.^[29] Hiroshi Itakura, a criminal law scholar at Nihon University said that this decision could be a new criterion for capital punishment under the lay judge system.^[25]

Criticism

Amnesty International argues that the Japanese justice system tends to place great reliance on confessions, even ones obtained under duress. According to a 2005 Amnesty International report:

Most have been sentenced to death on the basis of confessions extracted under duress. The potential for miscarriages of justice is built into the system: confessions are typically extracted while suspects are held in daiyo kangoku, or "substitute prisons", for interrogation before they are charged. In practice these are police cells, where detainees can be held for up to 23 days after arrest, with no state-funded legal representation. They are typically interrogated for 12 hours a day: no lawyers can be present, no recordings are made, and they are put under constant pressure to confess. Once convicted, it is very difficult to obtain a re-trial and prisoners can remain under sentence of death for many years.^[31]

Amnesty also reports allegations of abuse of suspects during these interrogations. There are reports of physical abuse, sleep deprivation and denial of food, water and use of a toilet.^[31] One of its biggest criticisms is that inmates usually remain for years (and sometimes decades) on death row without ever actually being informed of the date of their execution prior to the date itself, so inmates suffer due to the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not any given day will be their last. According to Amnesty International, the intense and prolonged stress means many inmates on death row have poor mental health, suffering from the so called death row phenomenon. The failure to give advanced notice of executions has been stated by the United Nations Human Rights Committee to be incompatible with articles 2, 7, 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.^[5]

South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre claims that the issue of death warrants by the Ministry of Justice may be politically motivated — in 1997, Norio Nagayama, a prisoner who committed the first of several murders as a juvenile was executed during the sentencing phase of Sakakibara Seito, whose case was another high-profile juvenile murder trial - an attempt, according to South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre, to show that the harshest punishment could be administered to juveniles.^[5] According to The New York Times, the execution of Tsutomu Miyazaki after the Akihabara massacre was claimed to be a similar case.^[32]

Executions since 1993

Inmate	Age	Date	Place	Crime	victim(s)	Minister
Seikichi Kondo	55	March 26, 1993	Sendai	Multiple murders	2	Masaharu Gotoda
Shujiro Tachikawa	62	March 26, 1993	Osaka	Multiple murders	2	Masaharu Gotoda
Tetsuo Kawanaka	48	March 26, 1993	Osaka	Multiple murders	3	Masaharu Gotoda
Tadao Kojima	61	November 26, 1993	Sapporo	Multiple murders	3	Akira Mikazuki
Yukio Seki	37	November 26, 1993	Tokyo	Single murder	1	Akira Mikazuki
Hideo Deguchi	70	November 26, 1993	Osaka	Multiple murders	2	Akira Mikazuki
Toru Sakaguchi	57	November 26, 1993	Osaka			Akira Mikazuki
Yukio Ajima	44	December 1, 1994	Tokyo	Multiple murders	3	Isao Maeda
Kazumi Sasaki	66	December 1, 1994	Sendai	Multiple murders*	2	Isao Maeda
Eiji Fujioka	40	May 26, 1995	Osaka	Multiple murders	2	Isao Maeda
Fusao Suda	54	May 26, 1995	Tokyo	Single murder	1	Isao Maeda
Shigeho Tanaka	69	May 26, 1995	Tokyo	Single murder	1	Isao Maeda
Shuji Kimura	45	December 21, 1995	Nagoya	Single murder	1	Hiroshi Miyazawa
Naoto Hirata	63	December 21, 1995	Fukuoka	Multiple murders	2	Hiroshi Miyazawa
Tokujirou Shinohara	68	December 21, 1995	Tokyo	Multiple murders*	2	Hiroshi Miyazawa
Yoshiaki Sugimto	49	July 11, 1996	Fukuoka	Single murder	1	Ritsuko Nagata
Kazumi Yokoyama	43	July 11, 1996	Fukuoka			Ritsuko Nagata
Mikio Ishida	48	July 11, 1996	Tokyo	Multiple murders	2	Ritsuko Nagata
Yoshihito Imai	55	December 20, 1996	Tokyo	Multiple murders	3	Isao Matsuura
Mitsunari Hirata	60	December 20, 1996	Tokyo	Multiple murders	2	Isao Matsuura
Satoru Noguchi	50	December 20, 1996	Tokyo			Isao Matsuura
Yasumasa Hidaka	54	August 1, 1997	Sapporo	Multiple murders	6	Isao Matsuura
Nobuko Hidaka	51	August 1, 1997	Sapporo			Isao Matsuura
Hideki Kanda	43	August 1, 1997	Tokyo	Multiple murders	3	Isao Matsuura
Norio Nagayama	48	August 1, 1997	Tokyo	Multiple murders	4	Isao Matsuura
Masahiro Muratake	54	June 25, 1998	Fukuoka	Multiple murders	3	Kokichi Shimoinaba
Yukihisa Takeyasu	66	June 25, 1998	Fukuoka	Multiple murders*	1	Kokichi Shimoinaba
Shinji Shimazu	66	June 25, 1998	Tokyo	Multiple murders*	1	Kokichi Shimoinaba
Masamichi Ida	56	November 19, 1998	Nagoya	Multiple murders	3	Shozaburo Nakamura
Tatsuaki Nishio	61	November 19, 1998	Nagoya	Single murder	1	Shozaburo Nakamura
Akira Tsuda	59	November 19, 1998	Hiroshima	Single murder	1	Shozaburo Nakamura
Masashi Satou	62	September 10, 1999	Tokyo	Multiple murders*	1	Takao Jinnouchi
Katsutoshi Takada	61	September 10, 1999	Sendai	Multiple murders*	1	Takao Jinnouchi
Tetsuyuki Morikawa	69	September 10, 1999	Fukuoka	Multiple murders*	2	Takao Jinnouchi
Teruo Ono	62	December 17, 1999	Fukuoka	Multiple murders*	1	Hideo Usui
Kazuo Sagawa	48	December 17, 1999	Tokyo	Multiple murders	2	Hideo Usui
Kiyotaka Katsuta	52	November 30, 2000	Nagoya	Multiple murders	8	Okiharu Yasuoka
Takashi Miyawaki	57	November 30, 2000	Nagoya	Multiple murders	3	Okiharu Yasuoka
Kunikatsu Oishi	55	November 30, 2000	Fukuoka	Multiple murders	3	Okiharu Yasuoka
Toshihiko Hasegawa	51	December 27, 2001	Nagoya	Multiple murders	3	Mayumi Moriyama
Koujirou Asakura	66	December 27, 2001	Tokyo	Multiple murders	5	Mayumi Moriyama
Ryuya Haruta	36	September 18, 2002	Fukuoka	Single murder	1	Mayumi Moriyama
Yoshiteru Hamada	51	September 18, 2002	Nagoya	Multiple murders*	3	Mayumi Moriyama
Sinji Mukai	42	September 12, 2003	Osaka	Multiple murders	3	Mayumi Moriyama
Sueo Shimazaki	59	September 14, 2004	Fukuoka	Multiple murders	3	Daizo Nozawa
Mamoru Takuma	40	September 14, 2004	Osaka	Mass murder	8	Daizo Nozawa
Susumu kitagawa	58	September 16, 2005	Osaka	Multiple murders	2	Chieko Nono
Hiroaki Hidaka	44	December 25, 2006	Hiroshima	Multiple murders	4	Jinen Nagase
Yoshimitsu Akiyama	77	December 25, 2006	Tokyo	Single murder	1	Jinen Nagase
Yoshio Fujinami	65	December 25, 2006	Tokyo	Multiple murders	2	Jinen Nagase
Michio Fukuoka	64	December 25, 2006	Osaka	Multiple murders	3	Jinen Nagase
Yoshikatsu Oda	59	April 27, 2007	Fukuoka	Multiple murders	2	Jinen Nagase
Masahiro Tanaka	42	April 27, 2007	Tokyo	Multiple murders	4	Jinen Nagase
Kosaku Nada	56	April 27, 2007	Osaka	Multiple murders	2	Jinen Nagase
Hifumi Takezawa	69	August 24, 2007	Tokyo	Multiple murders	3	Jinen Nagase
Kozo Segawa	60	August 24, 2007	Nagoya	Multiple murders	2	Jinen Nagase
Yoshio Iwamoto	62	August 24, 2007	Tokyo	Multiple murders	2	Jinen Nagase
Seiha Fujima	47	December 7, 2007	Tokyo	Multiple murders	5	Kunio Hatoyama
Hiroki Fukawa	42	December 7, 2007	Tokyo	Multiple murders	2	Kunio Hatoyama
Noboru Ikemoto	75	December 7, 2007	Osaka	Multiple murders	3	Kunio Hatoyama
Masahiko Matsubara	63	February 1, 2008	Osaka	Multiple murders	2	Kunio Hatoyama
Takashi Mochida	65	February 1, 2008	Tokyo	Multiple murders*	1	Kunio Hatoyama
Keishi Nago	37	February 1, 2008	Fukuoka	Multiple murders	2	Kunio Hatoyama
Kaoru Okashita	61	April 10, 2008	Tokyo	Multiple murders	2	Kunio Hatoyama
Masahito Sakamoto	41	April 10, 2008	Tokyo	Single murder	1	Kunio Hatoyama
Katsuyoshi Nakamoto	64	April 10, 2008	Osaka	Multiple murders	2	Kunio Hatoyama
Masaharu Nakamura	61	April 10, 2008	Osaka	Multiple murders	2	Kunio Hatoyama
Tsutomu Miyazaki	45	June 17, 2008	Tokyo	Multiple murders	4	Kunio Hatoyama
Yoshio Yamasaki	73	June 17, 2008	Osaka	Multiple murders	2	Kunio Hatoyama
Shinji Mutsuda	37	June 17, 2008	Tokyo	Multiple murders	2	Kunio Hatoyama
Yoshiyuki Mantani	68	September 11, 2008	Osaka	Multiple murders*	1	Okiharu Yasuoka
Mineteru Yamamoto	68	September 11, 2008	Osaka	Multiple murders	2	Okiharu Yasuoka
Isamu Hirano	61	September 11, 2008	Tokyo	Multiple murders*	2	Okiharu Yasuoka
Michitoshi Kuma	70	October 28, 2008	Fukuoka	Multiple murders	2	Eisuke Mori
Masahiro Takashio	55	October 28, 2008	Sendai	Multiple murders	2	Eisuke Mori
Yukinari Kawamura	44	January 28, 2009	Nagoya	Multiple murders	2	Eisuke Mori
Tetsuya Sato	39	January 28, 2009	Nagoya			Eisuke Mori
Shojiro Nishimoto	32	January 28, 2009	Tokyo	Multiple murders	4	Eisuke Mori
Tadashi Makino	58	January 28, 2009	Fukuoka	Multiple murders*	1	Eisuke Mori
Hiroshi Maeue	40	July 28, 2009	Osaka	Multiple murders	3	Eisuke Mori
Yukio Yamaji	25	July 28, 2009	Osaka	Multiple murders*	2	Eisuke Mori
Chen Detong	41	July 28, 2009	Tokyo	Multiple murders	3	Eisuke Mori
Kazuo Shinozawa	59	July 28, 2010	Tokyo	Multiple murders	6	Keiko Chiba
Hidenori Ogata	33	July 28, 2010	Tokyo	Multiple murders	2	Keiko Chiba

Note : Inmates noted with a * were sentenced to death for murder(s) committed while on parole for another murder

See also

	Japan portal
	Law portal

• Law of Japan
• Criminal justice system of Japan
• Judicial system of Japan
• Human rights in Japan
• Criminal punishment in Edo-period Japan

References

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2. ^ Petra Schmidt (2001). Capital punishment in Japan. Brill. pp. 9–24. http://books.google.com/books?id=8fZKH4cbcmQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=capital+punishment+in+japan&source=bl&ots=MbD5rYabs-&sig=aDn87mflXc5K0RT9ciILe4Jureo&hl=en&ei=d0GLTYywN4OivgPH7bHbDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&sqi=2&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
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16. ^ Japan executes 2 convicted killers
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19. ^ Mother, baby killer sentenced to hang April 22, 2008
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24. ^ "第024回国会 法務委員会公聴会 第2号" (in Japanese). National Diet Library. 1956-05-10. http://kokkai.ndl.go.jp/SENTAKU/sangiin/024/0640/02405100640002c.html. Retrieved 2008-03-19. 
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Further information

• Daily Mail article on Tokyo death chamber, 2010
• Matsutani, Minoru, "Shedding light on death penalty", Japan Times, 28 August 2010, p. 2.