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Japanese boxer formerly on death row for 46 years attends pope’s mass

18 Comments
By YURI KAGEYAMA

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18 Comments
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How does someone spend 46 years on death row? That's just ridiculous! If you are convicted of a crime and sentenced to death, the sentence should be carried out. If there is doubt, the death sentence should be reviewed and changed to a jail term. Just another shameful reflection on the Japanese 'injustice' system.

9 ( +12 / -3 )

Pretty easy way to solve this: End capital punishment.

6 ( +9 / -3 )

Prosecutors are evil, every sentance is a elevation for their bizarre notion of self worth.

Top of the pile is getting a death sentance, high fives all round. Might not be guilty but ?"I got it" how cool is that? They sould be on trial see how it looks from the other side.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Growing in 1970s London when the UK police routinely framed innocent Irish people such as the Guildford four, the Birmingham six, and the Maguire Seven to name but a few, I've always been against the death penalty. If the UK had the death penalty, they would have all been hanged. The death penalty has never been an effective deterrent. It's just cheaper.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Prosecutors are evil, every sentance is a elevation for their bizarre notion of self worth.

Prosecutors in Japan (bureaucrats) have become enemies of the people, rather than those who serve the people.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

46 years in death row? The judges must be very scared to have it carried on, but still not enough to lose face and recognise the total injustice.

Give him break please, regardless of what may have happened!

1 ( +2 / -1 )

46 years on in jail for a crime he did not commit. Complete injustice. Another life ruined because of overactive suspicions. Sad that a lot of prosecutors just push to win the case rather than seek the truth.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

"One of the judges who convicted Hakamada acknowledged later that he had serious questions about the case from the start."

OK so why didn't the judge throw it out of court if he has misgivings? or was he told to convict him at all costs, including not taking ALL of the evidence into consideration.

"In 2014, a court found Hakamada should be given a retrial based on new DNA tests and released him. That ruling was overturned by a higher court last year, which questioned the DNA tests. The case is now before the Supreme Court" as for being on death row for 46 years .this case stinks ! he's done his time, and plenty extra to most murder's get 25 years, let Alone 46 even if he's given a pardon, you can't replace 48 years of lost time, not even if he was compensated for his loss, I also appreciate that some else lost there life, but the police need to put away the right man or woman, rather that any one will do.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

I wonder if he is Catholic?

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

“I pray to Jesus Christ and appeal for my innocence from 9 until 10:30 every night. During this prayer time, I can be free from suffering. Thanks to God’s love and blessing, I exist and cry for the truth and walk toward tomorrow,” Hakamada wrote while in prison.

The words of a desperately broken man who has found comfort in his faith.

Poor fellow. May God answer his prayers and one day deliver him to eternal happiness in the afterlife.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

46 years in prison awaiting to be executed for nothing.

Considering the Japanese system of forced confession, it makes you think. How many inmates on death row right now are innocent, and how many innocents have been executed over the years ?

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Interesting about the judge not really believing in the conviction and even attempting suicide. It shows a different side of the story, we talk about how judges and prosecutors are in cahoots and how losing a case is a mark of shame and losing face far more than the actual pursuit of justice. The judge was a product of that system and realized that declaring innocence would have ruined his career, but it ended up haunting him for eternity. Who knows how many others have been put in the position, especially for less serious charges. Shows you that the system is broken all the way from the top down.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Cases like Hakamada's are exactly why the death penalty cannot be allowed.

The amount of, whatever, achieved through executing those who deserve it, will never amount to enough to excuse the complete and absolute hell it must be not only to be convicted of a murder one didn't commit, but to then sit on death row, and in most cases, be executed at the end of that wait. There is nothing that we as a species could ever do to be able to excuse such a punishment on those who didn't do the crime for which they are being punished.

To support the death penalty requires excusing the application of that hell upon the innocents to whom it accidentally happens. There has never been, nor can ever be, a system that is completely infallible, as systems either require human judgement, or the absence of it, neither of which can have 100% success rate.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

That's what support of the death penalty is - standing by and letting some innocent people be executed. Of course, not everyone realizes that supporting the death penalty also requires allowing innocents to be wrongly executed. But it's a fundamental truth of the death penalty, and if people are supporting it, they should also be aware that they are also standing by and letting innocents get executed.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

His supporters and lawyers say he was a victim of a criminal system that relies so heavily on forced confessions that it is called “hostage justice.”

He was!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

46 years in prison awaiting to be executed for nothing.

I can't imagine. .

Considering the Japanese system of forced confession, it makes you think. How many inmates on death row right now are innocent, and how many innocents have been executed over the years ?

excellent excellent point

3 ( +3 / -0 )

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