Top court allows retrial for 'longest' death row prisoner

Supporters say nearly 50 years of detention, mostly in solitary confinement with the ever-present threat of execution looming over him, took a heavy toll on Hakamada's mental health.

Something is very seriously wrong with Japanese Due Process of Law.

Anyone going to apply to the UN to get him listed as a world heritage site? I think he meets the criteria

"to bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared;"

This is viciously inhumane. Families only learn about an execution after the fact. Nasty, vindictive regime.

Iwao Hakamada has lived under a death sentence for more than half a century, after being convicted of robbing and murdering his boss, the man's wife, and their two teenage children.

I personally like to see cold cases and re-opened inquiries. Suppose Hakamada is innocent, the real multiple killer has still walked free or died peacefully.

There was one surviving family member (eldest daughter, then aged 19) whose ID remains under protection. She was away while the family was at home and under attack.

Many wild speculations and theories have been discussed around the unsolved case mainly on SNS....

But he and his supporters argue that he confessed to the crime after an allegedly brutal police interrogation that included beatings, and that evidence in the case was planted.

That I can believe.

People need to rethink capital punishment not just on a humanitarian ground but by the fact that it is human to make errors and that means the justice system is bound to make mistakes and people should be given every chance to appeal and prove their innocence rather than be murdered because of Judges making a mistake.

And Japan in particular needs to rethink its Justice System to afford everybody arrested the right to legal council and to have somebody present when they are being interrogated rather than a video turned on when it is convenient for the prosecutor to do so.

although debate on the issue is rare.

Debate on many issues is rare in Japan.

People have an inclination to believe what their lords tell them.

For such a backwards legal system where guilt is assumed, Japan is one of the last places that should be comfortable with a death penalty. Hopefully no innocents have been put to death by Japan’s legal system already... for others like Shoko Asahara and the twitter loon recently, I’m not complaining though.

If he really did he deserves the gallows

And if he didn’t you’ve killed an innocent man after robbing him of his freedom and life.

As the UN was stating earlier this month: The Japanese Justice is arbitrary and unjust.

The system persist unaltered through time.

What can you say about a people that allows their government to kill one of their kind, especially when, as everybody knows, SOME people ARE above the law? (the people who make and enforce 'em)

This is the dark side of Japan’s system: letting suspects be interrogated by police without their lawyers present for 23 straight days has turned that part of the process into a confession making factory, resulting in many coerced confessions and wrongful convictions.

I would hesitate to join the condemnation of the system as a whole though. Japan actually has one of the lowest prison rates in the world, while at the same time having relatively less crime. The system works well in that sense, but it has these flaws that also lead to these horrible miscarriages of justice.

IDK, he looks pretty comfortable in his chair.

Well I'm guessing most involved are dead and can't be held responsible for their actions. So the courts now can have a retrial without worrying about repercussions on the bent out of shape legal system. Except perhaps one, many person who lost their life, leave that decision to....not the courts in Japan. Have to wonder just how many others have been killed "accidentally " Nice system Japan

The case should be reviewed ASAP, if it looks like he was stitched up, and the evidence is wishywashy to say the least. he should be released immediately. although he he might be set free, there is no amount of compensation that will cover him for his lost time in jail.

Japan is a Banana Republic and Kangaroo justice...

The death penalty is state murder.

In this case it is barbaric that he should be sentenced to death in the first case, that he be mentally tortured with the threat hanging over him is unconscionable, but to drag that out for half a century of mental torture is beyond inhumane.

It is unbelievable they a country that is in many ways culturally, socially, economically and politically advanced should still continence this archaic dark age barbarism or a police/judicial system better suited to a backward repressive dictatorship.

The fact that he was never hanged suggests to me that there was always a lot of doubt about his guilt. People know that he is either innocent or that there is too much doubt over his conviction to carry out the sentence.

Presumably they are waiting for all the original detectives involved to die before taking any action so that no one loses face.