Prosecutors to pursue retrial of man who spent decades on death row

Hakamada initially denied the accusations but later confessed after what he subsequently claimed was a brutal police interrogation that included beatings.

Not only they forced him to do false confession but even after new evidence they still want him to be back on death row. He's not the only one, many others were suffer because the justice system seek for 99% conviction rate.

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2023/0505/Presumed-guilt-Unpacking-Japan-s-99.9-conviction-rate

Hakamada initially denied the accusations but later confessed after what he subsequently claimed was a brutal police interrogation that included beatings.

His attempts to retract the confession were in vain and his verdict was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 1980.

2023 and still no recorded evidence of police interrogations. The question of his innocence aside, if Japan still insists it abides by any kind of rule of law this should be changed by Hakamada's example.

The fact that a man sat decades on death row for a heinous homicide yet was never murdered by the State (in polite lingo, "executed") speaks volumes. Hakamada knows the "Land of Wa"'s fascist heart of darkness more than most.

Prosecutors told Shizuoka District Court on Monday they would go ahead with the new trial and seek a guilty verdict, an official in the prosecutor's office told AFP.

This has nothing to do with "guilt" or "innocence" after all these years. The police and prosecutors have no one else they can pin it on, so they are fighting tooth and nail to make him the scape goat!

Never putting him to death, for a crime the prosecutors and police KNEW he did, speaks volumes to the fact that there were questions about it all along. If they actually thought he was guilty, he would have been dead years ago!

They have wasted and destroyed his life on the basis of a violently extracted so called confession and questionable if not corrupt evidence and now they seek to destroy what little he has left.

Another proof that prosecutors are still living in another century with old methods and btw wasting our taxes money. Halagada deserves public excuses and million yens for a life stolen.

Hakamada oops.

If he is exonerated, he would have spent the majority of his life in prison as an innocent man, How is he expected to survive in the outside world? Its completely different from when he was free. If he is innocent, the government owes him BIG time.

Japan is the only major industrialised democracy other than the United States to retain capital punishment

IIRC Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore still administer caning and still hang people.

They have robbed him of his mind and body. Now they want to rob him of his dignity too.

Every reason why capital punishment should be abolished.

It is obvious that the prosecution are NOT 100% sure and beyond any reasonable doubt that the man is Guilty or he would have been put to death long ago.

IRC Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore still administer caning and still hang people.

You seem to have "missed" the wording and it's still wrong. None of these countries are considered a "major" industrialized country. Oh the article is wrong too as China is No. 1 in the world for carrying out executions and it is a "major" industrialized country.

What is SHOULD read, is G-8 country!

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/16/map-which-countries-still-have-the-death-penalty-2023

They have robbed him of his mind and body. Now they want to rob him of his dignity too.

You are behind the times here. His "dignity" was taken decades ago. They want to rob him of a peaceful death with his family. They want him back in prison as a symbol of their control and being "right", even when they are and were wrong!

Why? Hasn’t he suffered enough? Let him live in peace with what little time he has left.

Whether Iwao Hakamada, spent nearly five decades on death row is mentally fit to stand a re-trail is the matter in question for the judiciary.

There is evidence of a gross mischarge of justice, for Iwao Hakamada, and the families of the victims, left contemplating if the real preparator went free.

If there is a fate worse that death, it is waiting in solitary confinement for five decades for the date with hangman's rope.

I am not sure who should be on trail/retrial Iwao Hakamada, or the justice system that handed down such cruel callous act of mental torture, as a justified means of retribution.

The real killer(s) has remained at large since 1966, and may even be dead. I was still in school then.

Yubaru

   They have robbed him of his mind and body. Now they want to rob him of his dignity too.

You are behind the times here. His "dignity" was taken decades ago.

I disagree. While he remained alive he still had his dignity.

An 87 yr on death row for 60yrs to be tried again.........WHY???? It is pretty obvious he did not do the crime otherwise he would have been dead for decades. The police and prosecutors in Japan are probably the most corrupt in the world, to them it is all about saving face, not justice.

The prosecutors' pursuit of a conviction could lead to a lengthy trial. No date has been set.

This action for Iwao Hakamada, institutionalized on death row for five decades is just more of the same.

The prosecutors' could reopen the entire case, 21st century forensic science, and detection could produce a break through.

opheliajadefeldt

A lawyer friend scolded me, hideous crimes of this nature require a punishment that J culture and society, a shoutout if you will, that the people will never tolerate such acts.

You westerners, she bluntly stated simply don't understand.

Obviously that is no redemption for Iwao Hakamada, in all probability was convicted of a crime he is innocent of.

Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984....

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/60/contents

This legislation is at least worth considering

The next time people say WHY did Carlos Ghosn flee Japan if he was innocent one can simply point to THIS case. Look at what the prosecution is trying to do this poor and most likely innocent old JAPANESE man. What hope would ANYONE, much less a foreigner at that, have for an acquittal. It just won't happen.

the prosecution has really shot itself in the foot and has made it so obvious why there is no justice in Japan. They didn't have to pursue this old man, but by doing so, they are showcasing exactly how corrupt and vindictive they are.

Not everyone has the money to escape to Lebanon.

Death penalty on a confession and single evidence that appeared a year later? No wonder judges in Japan’s Injustice System are called stampers.

Tokugawa Ieyasu recognized Western grandstanding for what it is, whether in the form of Christian proselytizing of his day or the current “gender-affirming care for minors” crusade of ours.

Capital punishment absolutely is the only correct and humane course of action in many situations. It is sad how my native Canada keeps twisting itself over the continued existence of certain truly horrific murderers whom we all know should be dead. The Japanese public had rightly expected the torturers of Junko Furuta to pay the ultimate price, but as these torturing murdering scumbags had been 16 or so, they were saved by a piece of Western virtue signaling with a catchy name.

Come back please, Mr. Tokugawa.

Capital punishment absolutely is the only correct and humane course of action in many situations.

How ironic. Capital punishment is the very manifestation of inhumanity.

I have no problem with executing a killer. I have every problem with executing someone innocent. The problem is that humans are fallible and therefore when the death penalty is made legal, some innocents will be executed as a result.

Remember, in first world nations, people are not executed without being guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. And yet, innocents have been executed in all nations after being found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.

It's not worth it to me. As much as I have no problem with seeing murderers murdered, it's not worth it when innocents will also be executed as an accidental byproduct.

Just leave him be. Or find real evidence (Oh wait, there isn't any.)

If it was just the boss and a heated argument over money, well, that’s one thing. But to kill a mother and their two teenage sons is another thing entirely. Let him die in his prison cell.

Another case of face saving by the prosecutors!!! They can't let him to be found not guilty because it would undercut public trust in the system as their abuse, torture, and of falsifying evidence will come to light! SHAMEFUL!!! I have absolutely no trust nor respect in the Japanese legal system nor the police from my personal experience!

Don’t worry, it’s soon solved completely, when everyone has died who’s been involved, that’s what his high age is telling here. They all can’t turn the clock back, the victims are dead, this guy as the killer or if not then another unknown guy as the real killer, the former policeman, prosecutors, judges and prison guards, no one escapes here living forever, they will soon all have died too, which then also closes the case.

I assume blood stained clothes were in his house. If it was there, why was it found a year later? Was there dna test on blood? Was he set up by police to ensure the verdict? If the clothes were in his house before, why wasn’t it found before? Was his house not searched before. You would think the real killer would have washed them and got rid of the clothes. That kind of evidence would only be kept if you want to frame someone.

even if he was assumed guilty (doesn’t seem so), he has already stayed in jail to pay for the crime. It would be unfair to try him again for the same crime. The Double Jeopardy Clause in the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits anyone from being prosecuted twice for substantially the same crime.

John - a short answer. A longer reply went into the ether.

Clothes were found over 1 year later in a miso tank where the crime took place.

The pants were way too small for Hakamada. The bloodstains on the shirt appeared fresh and inconsistent with a long time submerged in miso. Looking at pics of the items, no normal human would guess these light colored clothes spent such a time fermenting in a miso tank - no way.

As DNA tech improved over the years not one result, not one, showed the blood to be consistent with Hakamadas.

He was arrested 2 months after the crime when there was immense pressure by the public. the media. the judiciary, the govt to "Find us a culprit". It seems anyone was ok - just find someone.

Hakamada was interrogated, beaten and tortured for hours on hours for days on days until he confessed. Sign, Sign, Sign.

ANd eventually he did.

At the trial recanted his confession as it was coerced.

Prosecutors Inc just can never, ever, be seen to be wrong - so fast forward 50 years and the same intolerable system is still working against him.

Where's the govt.

Wimps.

I disagree. While he remained alive he still had his dignity.

Replying to comments like this, is the same as beating one's head against the wall. Just get a headache, self-inflicted and meaningless.

Cases like this is why Ghosn was understandably of a mind to skip the country.

Other innocent people without the means are not so lucky.

It's not worth it to me. As much as I have no problem with seeing murderers murdered, it's not worth it when innocents will also be executed as an accidental byproduct.

5( +8 / -3 )

Apparently three people are ok with innocents being murdered as an accidental byproduct of allowing the death penalty.

I hope that if any innocents are put to death, it's at least those who pushed for the existence of the death penalty. If it were someone who had campaigned against it, it would be too sad.

So embarrassed are they by the fact that they were outed for the false confession and forcing the man to 50 years, most in isolation, that they just can't bear to have been contradicted. What an embarrassment the justice system here is. Seriously. And Japan wonders why it always ends up so far behind on human rights issues.

Japanese prosecutors are the pits. Any normal judge would throw such a request out.

Wow - talk about "Heart of Darkness." The state should give up...and abolish the death penalty.