crime

Law revision eyed to keep sex crime victims' names from offenders

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However, they sometimes face an order from a judge to clarify the facts including the name of the victim in order to prevent false charges.

It shouldn't be difficult. It's no different than how they keep the name of minors out of reports and media.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

I remember the Zushi case. It was an ex-boyfriend who tracked her down through a private investigator. After killing the girl he killed himself. Her husband sued the city and was awarded the paltry amount of one million yen.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

after the man came to know her married name and address when police read out an arrest warrant

There are umpteen problems here that have nothing to do with her name. First, reading out her address seems rather unnecessary. Second, if they are just going to release him why arrest him in the first place? Is this because they don't have enough evidence and want to get it in questioning? Well if they don't have enough evidence of a crime then they should not be arresting anyone! Maybe they need a new system called "mandatory questioning" that follows different rules?

Regardless, once the questioning is done and they STILL don't have sufficient evidence, the suspect is pretty much going to know who is accusing them aren't they? Then what? Hold anyone for years until a trial is finished? Until its finally learned the charges were BS? Or only do this when the accusation is sex crime? So basically give women a "jail any man free" card?

And this is over one case? What about all the others that went fine? Oh, you want a 100 percent perfect solution? That's not gonna happen sonny!

Just madness start to finish. I cannot even figure a legit reason why a now married women would suddenly want to press charges against an ex-boyfriend from who know how long ago. Its risky in many ways. I would not do it unless I had such solid evidence the guy would not be getting out after arrest for quite a long time. I would have video or recordings ensuring bail would be unlikely.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

The victim should also not have their names plastered in the media either. Also in saying that the accused should not have their names published until they have been found guilty. Plenty of cases where an accused has had his/her name published and it turns out they are innocent but due to the publicity their lives are ruined.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

@Vanessa, she “suddenly wanted” to press charges against the guy after he started sending her threatening emails. He was convicted and given a suspended sentence. Then he spent the next year trying to track her down, and sent 1000 emails in the two weeks prior to the murder.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

I'm all for protecting victims, and let's remember, too the extra societal and legal gravity that an accusation carries here.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Why? A quick memory at who these sex criminals are, often (over 50% of the time) are government employees, if not working down town then in schools. They seems to be protecting their own. I’m totally against this. Elitist garbage - again.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

It implies tons of paperwork to change anything on the MOJ.

It took for them 50 years of international pressure to start videotaping some, not all, the interrogations to detainees.

Expect another 50 years for this law to take place.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

AlongfortherideToday  09:17 am JST

The victim should also not have their names plastered in the media either. 

The local media had a sickening sensational story of a preteen girl kidnapped and they plastered her picture in the paper and on TV they repeatedly for a week emphasized that she was bound and gagged. After she was rescued and the criminal was busted, she was still followed by the local media and exploited. They had a news report special about her a year later - she was in another school, different hairstyle, etc. and those media hounds wouldn't leave her the hell alone.

The victims' names and circumstances of the crime do not need to be exploited. Their privacy needs to be protected. If a sex offender commits an offense on one victim, he/she probably will do so on more than one. Look at Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, R Kelly.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Seems some here don't understand a simple thing like protecting victims and what a stalker is and how far they will go.

Well I may not be a woman but I have been the subject of a seriously disturbed stalker.

Being a man I was not in any fear for my safety but being a single father and how things escalated I was definitely worried about my children.

Someone I knew through business ran into me in a coffee shop, we said a few niceties, drink that short conversation she asked about my wife, I informed her we had divorced and I was alone with the children.

Not long after, she started calling me at all hours, I blocked her number, then emails, texts, again blocked them, then she started sending mail yes actual posted letters.

Telling me how she would make a great wife and mother.

I couldn't understand how she got all my information, I never gave her anything.

Well it turns out she access her company files to get my business and personal info.

This went on for quite some time, the police laughed at me the Gaijin complaining about a young Japanese woman stalking him.

That was until my ignoring her turn dark making threats towards my children and me.

Only then and only because of the children did the police act.

Her company found out what she did, fired her and she finally left Tokyo ending the year and a half long nightmare.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

@Random - Thank you for the information. I suspect you agree that identifying her was about the least problematic of the problems with this case. Its.....its almost like the cops and justice system in general prefer to make a major alteration in the system than just admit like adults that they totally failed to do their jobs isn't it? I would think a guy given a suspended sentence could be thrown in jail quick fast for violating the terms of that sentence if ONLY police got up off their hind ends and did some police work. No?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Privacy is important for victims recovery.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@Vanessa, There were many failures in this. The police report in itself didn’t give the guy everything he needed but a place to start. He hired a private investigator that made calls to a city office impersonating her husband to get info. The P.I. was later charged and convicted but given a suspended sentence. In addition I believe a couple of the city office workers were also charged. The husband sued the city office for 10 million yen, awarded one million.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

These people haven't got a damn clue. Reminds me of the immigration officers who, when trying to confirm whether some Kurdish asylum speakers' story was true, went to Turkey and actually asked the authorities, giving them the Kurds' names, thus endangering their lives should they be sent back to Turkey. Clueless.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Uhhhh, how about a mandatory sex offender list that goes on one's permanent record and available for all to see? Or how about arresting these offenders with meaningful and lengthy jail time sentences? You know, some actual harsh consequences. How about them for starters?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Neither name should be released until conviction. Trial by media can ruin lives even if found not guilty by the court - divorce, loss of custody, loss of job, inability to get another job (on par pay or not), and becoming a social pariah. And you know the govt won't provide homeless housing for them.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I the US any such law would rightly be deemed unconstitutional. The US Constitution and its several amendments were written with the experience of the abuses of the British crown fresh in the writer's memory. The 6th Amendment reads:

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense."

Public trials ensure the public has confidence in the justice system as any miscarriage of justice will be known and not hidden from view. The ability to know one's accuser, the evidence they offer and to be able to cross examine them is deliberately confrontational and absolutely necessary to prevent secret evidence or anonymous accusations. Secret trial, secret evidence and anonymous accusers are the hallmarks of despotism and unfit for a free people who represent themselves in government. Remember, conviction in a criminal matter in the US requires a unanimous verdict of a jury to meet the threshold of "guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt". Even with these protections too many innocent people are sent to jail.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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