Kazuaki Shimazaki comments

Yes, he said that. The agreement does indeed settle that issue. And you seem to be under the illusion it was for nothing at all, but there is clearly at least one explicit trade here - the reversion of jurisdiction to Japan (reversing the 1952 San Francisco Treaty).

In terms of implied trades, if Japan wants to leave it unsettled, the US can simply not revert jurisdiction. It can also cease to defend Japan, and though the deal does bring advantages to the US Japan as the frontline country clearly has a more critical need for the help than America has in providing it. The US might also start pushing back on the provision of economic concessions to Japan (such as the deliberately cheap Japanese yen which makes it easier for them to export) - in essence they can do what they did in the 80s in the 70s.

@kiwiboyJan. 12 11:57 pm JST

The driver is not intentionally running the person over. They are not driving towards them at great speed. They are simply driving forwards [...] in a direction AWAY from the person who's trying to hang on.

I cut the part that's not established in the article, but I agree the driver is not purposefully running the person over. However, that's not the requirement of the criminal law, which allows for indirect or "conditional" intent - you don't have to want the outcome, you just have to be aware it exists and be indifferent to it. People need to study the basics of criminal law (we really should teach this stuff in high school) before making such statements.

I'll bet a few beers that the prosecution drops the case because they're not confident in winning - proof enough that it's NOT attempted murder.

Not confident in winning is not "proof" it's not attempted murder. I grant you the driver can try a few things in his defense, but all I said was that the case was "colorable", which means arguable or potentially winnable.

@kaimycahlJan. 12 11:45 pm JST

If the officer used common sense he would have not been dragged at all.

To put your argument in legal language, you'd say there is no conditional intent because the driver "relied" on the police to back off. And perhaps the doubt that the court will indeed go that path may stop the prosecution.

However, perhaps you should ask yourself why a court would necessarily take this inference if the question is put to them.

Even if this had been a dispute between two ordinary civilians, it's not hard to take the side that the driver should not have taken the risk at all even if it means suffering the inconvenience of being delayed while he calls a cop to resolve the situation. It certainly is true that the person stopping the car may have a legitimate grievance and if the driver is allowed to escape the chances of a normal civilian even finding him again is significantly reduced - the optimal solution may indeed be to burden the driver to wait until his identity can be well-established by an authority (police) for finding him later, even before taking into account the reduced risks to life and limb.

Add that one of the sides is a police, and the driver is an offender. The fact that there is a legitimate tort is basically undisputed, and there is a duty on the policeman to enforce the law, which increases his reasons for taking any means to stop an offender from escaping. The driver can and should be aware of this factor.

How on earth is driving your car for SEVEN meters while someone hangs onto the side of it, attempted murder? It's "attempting to get away".

First, you are confusing "motive" with "intent". All the driver needs here for an colorable case is that he was cognizant of a significant probability the hanger-on will die if he continues to drive, and he was indifferent to the outcome (he doesn't have to want it). Which seems likely since most people will stop once the idea they may be responsible for a death crosses their mind.

Second, he didn't "drive" the car for seven meters. The officer managed to hang on to the accelerating car for about seven meters before falling off - the perpetrator drove far enough away to temporarily break contact and was only later relocated through surveillance footage.

Article 4 of the 1971 Okinawa Reversion Agreement only states that Japan and its nationals wave all claims to damages incurred during the occupation period. It doesn't say illegality involved in the forceful confiscation of private property is pardoned.

FIrst, Yubaru is correct that things never got to the point of being a "pardon", simply because they were never found via trial procedures to be in the wrong. In waiving all their claims to damages, Japan is agreeing to give up their (including their nationals') right to even begin civil or criminal proceedings on the issue.

Yubaru should be credited for citing the treaty. Reading through other parts of it, the US is deeply aware from the day it began occupation to the day of reversion can be deemed controversial, and other parts have been used to effectively absolve the US and its personnel from any possible legal issues rising from them.

Or if it did, could a mere bilateral agreement transcend internatiovebnal law, that prohibits such confiscation

It gives Japan a potential claim right, but that right can be employed several ways. In this case, you can say Japan effectively "sold" the claim right.

First, as I've pointed out in my answer the last round, the claim right isn't worth very much because the issue is well past time-bar, which means a court's "most neutral" response is to throw the case out anyway. That's not counting how, if this is treated as a legal rather than historical issue, it's not hard to see how the US authorities can array defenses. Remember the burden of proof lies with the plaintiff or prosecution.

Second, it is used as part of the deal proffered to get the administrative rights to Okinawa back from the US at all. What is more valuable to Japan - getting Okinawa back or keeping some theoretical, long-shot claim rights? What is better for the Okinawans - getting out of the American administrative / judicial thumb or keeping some claim rights that have little chance of success in anything but a South Korean (because your reasoning reeks of theirs) court?

Japan needs to designate parts of its Penal Code as out of bounds for Suspended Sentences.

Xi rose through the ranks of a corrupt system via corruption most likely. FTFY.

Let:s be fair - he probably didn't make it all the way up there without showing real competence.

That's totally up to the people of India and Brazil when they elect their leaders. If they don't like them and they "haven't served them well" they will elect different ones (as Brazil recently did).

Well, that's the party line, but the problem may be that you can't find suitable leaders within a realistic democracy because they are so distracted by tactical (4-year cycles) needs.

Also, in the case of India, it's not a secret Modi is working to decrease the Civil-Political rights situation. As does Trump and to a lesser extent the US Republicans. The UK is getting tougher on protests. So even that part as an argument is weaker than it was just 5 years ago.

"This execution by proxy is unacceptable as it robs the prefectural government of its administrative authority and means they are trying to construct a new base by infringing on our autonomy and independence."

Perhaps you should ask yourself whether you should be giving out permits based on whether you like projects or not, or even if they are popular with the population. You should only be thinking of whether it meets legal requirements.

Motomitsu Nakagawa, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said that Tuesday's high court ruling was “almost a mere copy and paste” of the top court decision and that it “makes me infuriated.”

You can hardly fault lower courts for complying with the jurisprudence set by the Supreme Court.

The easiest way to deal with your objection is simply to invoke the fact it is time-barred, being well over 20 years. Forcing an issue against a time-bar is problematic both substantively and procedurally. For example, if forced into court the US will no doubt plead that it was unaware that the relevant hexes were not abandoned land. Also, they did allocate land outside the base to the villagers so they were recompensed. Third, they were the administrators of Okinawa up to 1972 so they might be able to claim even eminent domain. And of course, since we are well over the prescription period the remaining records are incomplete, so just try and prove that they intentionally appropriated land they knew wasn't abandoned or that the villagers definitely did not agree to accepting the compensation. The inability to determine facts with precision, and the unfairness of requiring people to keep records forever just in case they might be sued one day, are both valid reasons for the time-barred period, and it would be invoked. As far as the law is concerned, Futenma is not illegal property.

The second easiest way to deal with your objection is that to the extent that Funtenma may be illegal, the US government is willing to settle the dispute. Settlements are a matter of negotiation and free contracting, and if the settlement is that you provide them with another piece of land, that's legally valid. It might reflect your weak bargaining power (because the Japanese people are unwilling to pay enough for their defense, for example), or it might reflect the reality they are more likely than not to win any court case even if it is held (some reasons provided above). Either way it doesn't make it legally invalid.

What happened isn't a matter of popularity, but the law. The governor isn't supposed to approve or deny plans based on his preferences or even the project's popularity, but whether they meet the relevant legal standards. He abused his authority and tried a pretext to block something he did not like. The government duly lined up along with the peasants for a day in court. Now the government is permitted to Substitute the Governor in the Duties He Failed to Execute. (Yeah, the translation of daishikkou is wonky I agree).

Well, since they tried taking him to the hospital, short of extraordinary circumstances what happens next can be blamed on the health services instead of the police.

I think it should be ¥500,000 or so for serious violations. Leave ¥15,000 for first time non-helmet wearers, and then go up each time exponentially.

But they want people to cycle. You have to ask yourself whether you will still commute by a bicycle if you can be fined 500,000 yen for it.

Keeping rhythm by moving her left arm, she powerfully pressed the keys with the back of her right hand, with the AI-assisted piano filling in the notes to complete the performance.

Unlike more traditional auto-play, the "Anybody's Piano" stops if a player hits the wrong notes.

Oh, gee, is this really such a big advance over the Tutorial functions found in a PSR-E373 (available for less than US$200). That thing also fills in the left hand to accompany my right hand (or the reverse) and it stops if I push the wrong note. It'd even change the tempo to match my actual entry speed to create something that isn't too unmusical. The only addition is that maybe I don't even need to play the whole right hand anymore - just the topmost melody line or the bottom-most bass line and it'd fill in the rest for me.

How does one extend the continental shelf? It is a geographical structure that has taken millions of years to form. The headline should state, Japan extends its economic exclusion zone.

That's not appropriate because that simply is not what is being extended. Of course, you are correct that it is not possible to extend the physical structure. However, it is possible to change one's assessment of where the physical structure is, or to formalize and act on an already-made assessment more favorable to oneself than the one previously employed.

The worst case ending for this would be it will create a chilling effect in cycling in general. The infrastructure in Japan really isn't that commuting-cyclist friendly. There is a bicycle lane (or at least a place that allows for cycling) close by but I feel it's more for recreation than practical commuting.

While we are on the subject of Road Traffic Law reform, I can't help but wonder at Japan's idea to allow motorcycles, a more dangerous vehicle at age 16 and even planes at age 17, but cars have to wait for 18. It seems to make more sense to allow for kei cars at 16 and move the age of the motorcyclist up.

The employee reported it to their superior, who, thinking it would not be a problem if the maintenance work were carried out later in the day, did not stop the flight, according to the ministry.

To be fair, I can imagine the scene. Guy A didn't do his job. Guy B notices Guy A's negligence but too late to get it done, asks Superior C for instructions. Superior C is faced with the choice of either delaying the flight (as the book says he should) or just lump it into the next maintenance interval, chose the path that won't lead him into trouble and also avoid affecting the passengers.

The 1965 bilateral treaty is clear, unmistakably so, posted above, Article III states a dispute resolution procedure.

Which they aren't using, because really, they have no cards. In Korean (and Japanese) law, damages are a subcategory of claim. Further, the intent of the law is very clear - both countries (at least at that time) do want bygones to be bygones. It's only modern Koreans that bury their head in the sand.

Its’s not the people who are being held responsible, but firms with a direct link to that time which profiteered from slave labor

What do you think behind those firms but people. You can't take away from firms, or the State, without it ultimately coming out of the hide of real people. As for the zero-sum argument, I am truly sorry but the idea that an opposing country can just decide, after an agreement is already signed, that it wants more, then slap on some cheap excuses and use its "Judiciary" to unilaterally get more is too much of a violation of principles to accept. What if Japan pays, and they make up another excuse within their domestic law to get more, eh?

Kabuki actor Ennosuke, who assisted his parents’ suicide, walked free. He’ll probably be back on stage in a year or two. It’s not fair.

TBF, there are some factors here that worked in Ennosuke's favor. For example, he didn't act with anyone else. If we accept the premise that assisted suicide is bad, a doctor feeling like he can do so is more societally dangerous than a Kabuki actor, simply because so many more people may rely on him to do so, while Ennosuke is likely to only be entrusted with assisting the suicide of his parents.

The second problem is that Japanese judges' feelings on the Suspended Sentence is different from the common man. It's as if they think that a Suspended Sentence is "almost as grave" as an Executed Sentence of the same duration. The common man sees it as "No Jail Time" vs "Jail Time". The only way out may be Legislation.

So in Japan you are welcome or even encouraged to kill yourself (suicide was the honourable way out), but you can't have somebody assist you,, even if you give them permission? Something deeply wrong with this.

Japanese Academia has three major positions on this issue:

1) Suicide is not illegal, because it is the self-disposal of one's own legal rights, an act of self-determination. However, it is not impossible to limit this right in the name of paternalism, because most people are far from a state of calmness and rationality. Thus it is within the State's discretion to limit it the extent of forbidding aiders.

2) Suicide by oneself is illegal, but insufficiently so to be criminally punishable. The illegality comes from the Japanese law position that life (as opposed to say dignity or freedom) is the highest value. However, suicide is an act of self-determination and this is sufficiently strong the "net illegality" doesn't reach the point of criminality. Having said that, since suicide itself is illegal, that another person can volunteer to assist, thus harming life can reach the point of actual criminality.

3) Suicide is illegal (to the point of criminality) but is excused when considering the motives and situations of the perpetrator. The aider, however, lacks such motives and thus bears aider's liability - the article 202 merely makes it explicit.

Your choice.

Well, the more salient point is - Japan has already agreed to surrender its claim to those islands in 1952. The whole "Let's redefine what Kuriles even means" is one of Japan's lowlights.

As for Russia, Japan's bribe would have to be huge to get those islands back. If you look at Russian history, voluntarily (or demi-voluntarily) giving up land doesn't work for them at all. They sold Alaska for what seemed like decent reasons at the time, but less than 100 years later events showed they'd be better off having a base on the North American continent. They let Ukraine go, and from their perspective it clearly didn't work out at all. The lesson is - other things (like money) are temporary, the advantage of holding land is permanent.

One of the consequences of the "No War" clause is that it is more risky and harder to give up land than ever. Used to be you can try letting a nationality become independent, or try handing some land over to settle things, because if it really doesn't work out you can always declare war on them and take it back. That threat also gives the new state an incentive to not pick a fight. But now land losses are permanent (at least in theory).

The fact that nobody could find an expert to contradict him would indicate his testimony is perfectly credible,

That's too optimistic. At most you can argue it could mean his testimony is perfectly credible. A possibility that's greatly diminished by

a) the judge not seeming to favor it. He saw the lob. You read about Alkonis and his family claiming there was a lob and you just assumed it was a proper lob. I'd also point out if there is any political wind as far as the judge is concerned, it'd be finding a way to get Alkonis off, simply because of ... just look at yourself Virurex - I'd say that the Japanese State is wishing there is some presentable way within their internal law and system to get this Alkonis off and do so.

b) the fact he's arguing against very common knowledge and experience. 8000 feet air is common experience. If he was say at 12000 feet which would be visited by only a minority and the judge may not have personal experience of it, that doesn't stick as well, but available information suggests Alkonis was at about 8000 feet, max.

I grant you that common knowledge and understandings can be wrong, but it does present a hill for the expert to explain away, and again, you simply don't know how well he did so.

c) An American's low credibility in this situation - a point I notice you aren't fighting back on. A license at best means he has knowledge - it says little about whether he's willing to favor telling the truth over protecting one of his countrymen.

The prosecutor decided that getting an expert is an unjustified cost and risk, and he seems to be right, at least as far as the Japanese Court system is concerned. I've also demonstrated (though it shouldn't matter b/c Japan is not obliged to follow the US) that US Courts don't automatically require "counter-experts" either - I grant you no two cases are 100% congruent, but I'd say the argument favors me.

Finally, I notice you have not considered the possibility the testimony was never as good or covered as much area as you wish it was, even if the judge deems it credible. For example though the information is sparse, the Judge is known to have considered that the problem would lessen as they reach the floor of the mountain. Did the expert's testimony allow (by silence) this possibility? If so, there are several possibilities, such as

A) The Defense Advocate is incompetent and didn't draw appropriate testimony from his expert to seal off this (frankly rather clearly forseeable) possibility.

B) The American doctor let him know quietly before the trial a "pro-Alkonis" version on this sub-issue is not likely to survive challenges, and the Defense Advocate decided the best chance was to not raise this subissue at all to reduce the chance it'd be subjected to a devastating cross examination.

You said you expected the decisions made to be guided by the lawyers involved,

I said the lawyers should have explained the definitions of the words to him, which is not exactly the same thing. Anyway, ultimately it doesn't matter if the crappy answers you put on your test paper are your own, your mothers', or from an outside "expert". People should not be surprised when a crappy answer gets a low mark.

So your argument now is that his plea of negligence failing to recognize an unexpected and uncommon health problem can magically be transformed in a plea of negligence for sleeping at the wheel?

I don't have to disagree with that. First, he already plead guilty. Second, even if hadn't plead guilty, he's F-ed as soon as he had to admit he swerved 5 minutes before the crash and tried to press on. Whether the swerve was due to fatigue or him being "one in a million" makes little difference to his guilt. All the whole diversion did was establish his non-remorse (or, if you insist we can't read his heart, at least optically it looks that way) and expend the court's time for little purpose.

What do you think looks worse anyway, you doing what millions of drivers must have done and the odds caught up with you, or you coming up with a pie-in-the-sky story? What do you think the judge is more likely to have personally experienced (and thus empathize)? Driving while fatigued (he might even have driven while drunk without anyone noticing) or fainting from 8000 feet air? If you are going to bet your freedom on the pie-in-the-sky story, that's your defense choice but do expect it to come down on you like bricks when it doesn't work - you won't be "back to where you started", you'd be "worse off".

There is absolutely nothing in the definition of a problem being unexpected that would mean there was nothing he could have done to stop the accident, it is simply not as clear and obvious as being sleepy.

You might not be arguing there's nothing he could have done to stop the accident. but you are already arguing it's reasonable (because it is "not as clear and obvious") for him to choose to not stop if he's suffering from this condition, rather than if he's swerving from being sleepy. You are fighting the charge at the Subjective Aspect. If the establishment of the charge was interrupted at the Subjective Aspect, he did not commit a crime and would be freed. Again, the correct plea for such an argument is Not Guilty.

browny1Dec. 16 05:21 pm JST

Yesterday, I had another encounter with 8000 feet air. During my encounter with said air, no one on the flight fainted and I digested an entire book on the Folbigg case (The Big Folbigg Mistake, by John Kerr, published 2022).

First, the case shows that everyone relies on probability, not just Japan. Ultimately, it is always probability. DNA tests can have errors, at a certain probability. The testimony of experts can have errors, and if two experts oppose each other ultimately one will be more correct than another, but again that's probability.

Second, the Folbigg case has differences to its detriment. The most obvious being that while Alkonis was indisputedbly behind the wheel and crashed into the victims - thus the Objective Aspect is a done deal, there is zero direct evidence Folbigg killed her kids. Instead, her actus rea (common law case, use common law language) was fudged together on the weak basis that she was alone with the kids.

The use of "psycholinguists" is worse than its equivalent applications in Russia. In a stereotypical case in Russia, that the defendant wrote those words (Objective Aspect) is indisputed, and the psycholinguist is only used as an expert on the value of the words to prove an extremism charge. In this case, the psycholinguists (they even brought in the Mossad...) were used to fudge an entire motive and an exceptional mental state out of words in her diary to create a scenario where her actus rea is even a serious possibility. The mere presence of a motive is very far from saying she did it, but that's what happened. For that matter, if we hypothetically accept the premise she killed the kids but she was in this exceptional mental state, the latter would probably have reduced her culpability in a Continental Law country, but all it did was sink her in the Common Law one.

Finally, her defenders were, many years after the conviction, able to find very specific conditions (genes) in those infants that raise the probability of their natural deaths from incidental to very significant. If anything, it used to be believed this mutation is so lethal embryos with it would be entirely nonviable, and only later was it realized some people can live with it after all. Anyway, the lethality is more likely than a frustrated mother killing her kids (after all, frustrated mothers are very common, but those who are sufficiently motivated to kill their kids rare). Alkonis is not known to have such "convenient" genes.

virusrexDec. 17 07:31 am JST

The expert's opinion is that there is reasonably possible for this to happen in this case

The expert hasn't been sufficiently convincing that the prosecutor had a "case to answer", so to speak. His exact performance on the court aside, there are two things against him - the manifest unlikelihood of the scenario he proffers, and his credibility. American "experts" have a poor reputation.

One example would be Professor Cleary, who taught law in Japan and was brought in by the Taylors as an "expert" on Japanese criminal law. He ended up putting out points that are at the same level as a JapanToday commentator, and he should have known are contradicted by Japanese jurisprudence if he even read a Japanese Criminal Law text. So either he's really incompetent (a true legal version of a "quack") or he is willing to lie for his countrymen.

(Obviously, I was exaggerating about "dying" to airliner air, but you know what I mean there. And here I really am not exaggerating because I literally screenshotted the relevant portions of my Japanese Criminal Law textbook to answer the same god-darned points!!!

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jL0a7SXeqV3sWhh7a1akjqnJZQIkYYPbQ63vTuypifE/edit#slide=id.p

It's that bad...)

Either way, after such examples do you think any American "expert" would have an uphill climb establishing even his basic integrity? I'd also note in that case, neither the Japanese authorities nor the American lawyer representing their interests in the US court felt the need to dig up a third-party "neutral expert" to counter Professor Cleary. The Taylors, as you must know, ended up going to Japan - and presumably after being told that whatever Kool-Aid the likes of Professor Cleary told them won't fly decided to plead guilty.

A decision that you finally recognize come from the advice of his lawyers

Did I say that here? Well, we can still dispose of this point right here and now. It's not clear whose idea it was, but "Tactical Pleas of Guilty" are not unknown. It is known that American consulate officials have advised Americans to plead guilty due to their prejudices on the Japanese Legal System.

https://nymag.com/vindicated/2016/11/truth-lies-and-videotape-at-the-kawasaki-kmart.html

I say prejudice because even after her fake plea (where she at least played it right and acted very contrite) and got her Deferred Prosecution, the police did not call it a day and continued to find the true circumstances behind her case.

But back to Alkonis, Tactical Pleas are a choice, but they come with consequences in terms of what you can say from that point on. It's not clear what combination of Japanese & American legal advice and Alkonis' own ideas caused the defence he finally tried, but it clearly didn't work.

All I'm saying is that it is very understandable it did not work because it is a Worst of All Worlds, theoretically oxymoronic defense. It suggests to the judges Alkonis bought the Kool-Aid about the Japanese legal system (which kind of flies into any song he may sing about liking Japan), it tells them he's not really repentant (which is why you get reductions from pleading guilty) but trying to be cagey. Plus he killed two people.

If you want to try cagey defenses that's your choice you have to realize it can backfire on you hard if the defense fails.

He is saying he did do it, failed to recognize his unexpected condition as something that would risk accident

If his condition is "unexpected", then he is excusing himself, because he's arguing it's reasonable for him to not stop. He may really be better off if he just accepted the story about him falling asleep on the wheel. He won't be the first or last person to try driving fatigued. He can sing a song and dance about him having to do Family Time with his kids when his work lets him - a sentiment that would ring well with overworked Japanese and would explain why he took the chance to drive there and back anyway. Still won't make it excusing, but it would be a mitigating factor. Oh, and if he really can't squeeze more than US$1.65 million from his credit lines, he can always offer something like giving up 20% of his future earnings for life - if he pleads guilty he needs to LOOK contrite (whether he really is is between him and his conscience) and an American who offers a fraction of what Americans famously throw around for mere defamation doesn't look contrite regardless of what "market prices" in Japan are.

Kazu Shima - thanks for the authoritative sounding explanation of the ways of pleading.

Thank you. You can find this out by buying books on criminal law. They cost only a few thousand yen each. I don't claim to be a qualified legal professional or anything, but we are really talking Year 1 stuff (countries around the world really should teach this stuff in High School if you ask me - it's more useful than Ancient Literature). If Japanese is hard for you, you can buy Principles of German Criminal Law by Bohlander in English, because Japanese Criminal Law is an offshoot from the German so they use virtually the same basic principles

A million to one sounds very pie-in-the sky. Is that arbitrary. Why not a thousand to one etc? What qualifies the degree of impossibility? Is there a scale? Why does it have to be a disease?

Can you imagine airliners getting away with 8000 feet air if the rate of people suddenly blacking out is as high as one in a thousand? We'd be hearing about multiple people blacking out in flights every day. They might be there somewhere in the mass, but the "acceptable" rate would be closer to 1:1,000,000 or more than 1:1,000.

Does it give more value to your processing of events?

Look, it's obvious I'm not very convinced - and I've given some reasons in previous posts. And while I don't think the full judgment has leaked yet, the parts we hear would suggest the judge wasn't very convinced either. If I'm not saying it, I'm still thinking it. But the main point is what he's saying - and how he can't even get his story to be compatible with each other.

Why is it an easier sell?

Because more probable, less extreme things are more plausible prima facie. It's the difference between saying you can run 100m in 12 or 13 seconds, and you being in that elite group that can do it in under 10.

virusrexToday 03:05 pm JST

Still a completely invalid argument to say he did not suffered from a health problem. Millions of people walk or run everyday, some develop an urgent health problem with that normal activity.

The standard is "reasonable" doubt, not all doubt. Alkonis being the victim of a one million to one disease is not impossible, but it's not likely enough to "reasonably" doubt the idea that he wasn't as well rested as he should be, chose to drive, fell asleep and killed two people.

If the judge could not find anybody

Japanese judges do have some discretion to conduct their own investigations (one judge indeed took that course of action in the Atago collision incident), but it is not required, and any limits of this discretion aren't well known.

However, it can be surmised that had the judge chosen this course, Americans will scream bloody murder because that would be the judge "taking on some roles of the prosecutor" or "being against the defendant". Americans are used to the adversarial system, and won't look kindly on the judge investigating, especially if his investigation ends up discrediting "their guy".

In principle, responsibility for deciding what evidence to present against the defendant is with the prosecutor. For his reasons, he has chosen to not affix additional experts. We can assume that he knows the system and jurisprudence, and it doesn't require an expert for this scenario. This may be different from American practice but isn't unreasonable considering the factors cited previously that apply to this case (not making guarantees about other cases).

Barring jurisprudence otherwise, it is within the Judge's discretion to assign a low credibility rating for an expert. It would certainly be unfair to him to suddenly raise standards for the prosecution when rightly or wrongly that's not what the courts have been doing.

there decision was unreasonable without proving it first

Whether a decision is reasonable or not is a value judgment, a question more of law than for facts. However, this part was in the context of criticizing his decision to plead guilty while not really doing so.

If a defendant wants to put his chances on arguing the rationality and reasonableness of his actions, the correct move is to plead Not Guilty. Success means that he lacks the subjective element of the crime and does has committed no crime at all.

I'd point out that this defense is at odds with the idea of getting a US Navy quack to testify he died to airliner air. The former requires him to be rational and reasonable, the latter requires him to be so incapable of such he should be excused for his actions. Do you see why these two defenses don't mix?

Are you arguing he was a legal expert with full knowledge of every term he used in his declarations?

I expect his lawyer to educate him, or now that he is being prosecuted to look up what those words mean, or the basics of the Tripartite structure of criminal law.

If he wants to say he didn't do it, he's challenging the charge in its Objective Aspect and should plead Not Guilty.

If he wants to say he did it but he didn't intend to, nor was he indifferent, he is challenging the Subjective Aspect of an intentional crime and should plead Not Guilty to those.

If he's charged with a Crime of Negligence, and he wants to say he fully executed his duty of care and any risks he took are reasonable, he's challenging the Subjective Aspect of a crime of negligence and should plead Not Guilty.

If he isn't challenging either the Objective or Subjective aspects, we move to the second stage of assessing criminality. If he wants to try a Circumstance Excluding Criminality (a.k.a Justification, self-defense, necessity, conflicting duty ... etc), he pleads Not Guilty.

If he cannot justify his actions, he may still be try a Circumstance Excluding Culpability (a.k.a. excuse). If he wants to say it is inexigible for him to follow the law in that instance, he pleads Not Guilty.

If he wants to say he has no control over his actions because he is just weak to thin air ... he even faints on airliners ... then he pleads Not Guilty.

The only time you can combo a Guilty Plea with a Justification or Excuse is if you accept its imperfection, such as excessive self-defence. In this case, instead of trying to say he blacked out, first, he might agree that he didn't get enough sleep last night. He wouldn't be the first or last man to drive in such conditions, and by itself that wouldn't have been sufficient to cause the accident. Except (his quack testifies) he's a BIT more vulnerable than the average man to airliner air - it decreases his mental capabilities a bit more, and it takes him a bit longer to recover than most. Neither of these factors by themselves were serious enough to affect his regular life, so he hasn't been diagnosed until now, but the combination meant he was in a state of reduced (but still existent) mental capacity and unfortunately failed to make the correct, rational decision to pull over. It also unfortunately caused him to make one incorrect input (like that old geezer who pushed the accelerator rather than the brake), which caused him to crash into the victims. He was Conscious (kind of) the Whole Time. Regardless of whether this is the truth, at least he didn't contradict himself with this Narrative and the less exaggerated idea will be easier to sell while still reducing his culpability. Though the number who faint from airliner air is negligible, most people don't feel their sharpest stumbling off the plane so the idea that a person might be just slightly more vulnerable and had that exacerberated by lack of sleep is easier to empathize with than trying to sell "He Blacked Out. Without Warning. Really."

Aly RustomToday 03:31 pm JST

They sprung Ghosn is because of the flawed justice system which incarcerates people indefinitely. As for Americans being trained to prejudicially distrust the Japanese judicial system, I would say NO ONE trained anyone to distrust the justice system here. The system is responsible for that.

There are three parts you can potentially object to - the fact he was incarcerated, the lack of medical care, and the ostensible lack of a lawyer, of which the most important accusation is probably the first, so I answered that. The medical care is a simple matter of him not showing any objective need for one - this may very well be him bleating after he decided he's going to try to claim he died to airliner air. The lawyer well, there's not any sign he was denied a lawyer at all, and he isn't shafted in the lawyer not accompanying him into the interrogation room - that's just the norm in Japan.

Unfortunately, Americans have shown themselves to be a flight risk, and one reason is clearly prejudice. Not many critics of Japan's legal system can even describe it in its theoretical form but they can cite cases from the 60s. This clear imbalance in their knowledge creates the prejudice and drives them think it is "OK" for them to escape (as you are clearly trying to justify Ghosn's escape here).

@virusrexToday 01:40 pm JST

Which if the claim is true would not necessarily be the case.

A huge if.

According to what expert? obviously there is no valid personal appeal of expertise from anonymous accounts.

Look, it's not hard. People experiencing thin air similar to that faced by Alkonis are in their millions - the number that have ever flown in an airliner, which as you know are pressurized to 8000 feet. The 787 is lowering that to 6000 for a more pleasant experience, but that's a very new plane (I've never tried 6000 feet airliner air before, being always on A320s). Basically people don't suffer serious effects from 8000 feet air. Heck, because Russians are cheap, they actually reduced the pressure differential in their planes so their passengers suffer 9000 feet air, and as far as anyone can tell, passengers still make it out fine.

People who climb Mount Fuji are also plentiful, and the number of people who suffer problems are minimal, and suddenly conk out without warning less.

Any medical expert trying to fight the other direction is fighting against this factoid, which is so well known it'd qualify for Judicial Notice (in common law terms). We defer to expertise - to an extent. But some positions are beyond that deference, and trying to establish Alkonis as a person that conks out without warning in airliner air is one of them.

Having the odds against you is a terribly bad argument for lying and accept guilt.

I'm not saying he has to accept guilt. I'm saying he, and his family, should have the objectivity to accept when odds aren't in their favor. 

Saying that an affliction made you cause an accident and then refuting it was because of malice, neglicence etc. is not oxymoronic, it is not even contradictory.

Basic definitions time. Negligence (kashitsu) is divided into two stages - conscious and unconscious. Conscious is when:

a) you are aware of a risk,

b) you neither want or are indifferent to the negative consequences and

c) you unreasonably decided you can push on while avoiding the risk and d) you failed.

Which seems to cover this situation. He was already swerving before the collision, so he is aware that he's not at his best. No one says he wants to kill or is indifferent to killing someone with his car. He rationalized he can get to his destination, which did not work out.

If his story is that he never had a chance due to the thin air, he should claim "not guilty" by reason of "temporary mental incapacity". Claiming guilty and then trying to push an incapacity claim is an oxymoron that shows he's more interested in gaming the system and kills off any attempt to establish him as remorseful.

Not that this would necessarily work because, here's an example of unconscious negligence. Alkonis never had a concrete, useful warning. However, in this version High Altitude Sickness to the Point of Unwarned Fainting is a significant probability, as advocated by Alkonis' defenders, and further it should be well known. At the very least, Alkonis knows it because according to his defenders he was pleading to be medically examined from the very start, which was refused. OK then, if there's such a risk, which is known (or even should be known) to Alkonis, then duty of care would suggest he shouldn't have driven in the first place, just as duty of care should have guided him into Not Driving if he knew he was Fatigued.

He still breaches his Duty of Care, caused two deaths and is un-remorseful.

(Actually, depending on how you scale it, his knowledge of High Altitude Sickness could be argued to make him aware of a risk, and thus this can be Conscious Negligence as well - but this is at least also an example of Unconscious Negligence).

is discarding the opinion of an expert that said this is a reasonable scenario based on absolutely nothing.

Other than the "expert opinion" goes against something of Judicial Notice level. Besides, the idea that Western military doctors will actively cover for their soldiers is well known, and for that reason aren't particularly credible:

[After crashing into something with a car while drunk]

In what appeared to be no time at all a car pulled up next to us in the dark. It was an officer from Brawdy. 

'I think you two need a lift to the Sick Bay, don't you? You'd better get in!' 

'But I'm bleeding like a stuck pig! It will ruin your back seat.'

'Never mind that! Get in quickly before the police arrive.'

...

The police arrived before the Doc had finished stitching Robin and I was instructed by the medical staff to hold my breath throughout the short interview and to feign total shock. This I did and the police rapidly gave up trying to solicit a statement from me. Soon we were both on our way to the Haverfordwest hospital for overnight observation. When we returned to the Air Station the next day after a second suitably unproductive interview with the police,

MacCartan-Ward, Nigel. Sea Harrier over the Falklands: The Black Death . Pen & Sword. Kindle Edition.

First, note how a fellow officer helps drive them away from the scene of the crime. Second, note how the medical staff teaches the officers how to evade justice. Third, note how so little remorse or sense of wrongness is felt this is recorded in an autobiography that's the author lauding his own achievements and career. Fourth, note how the reader is clearly intended to find this all acceptable.

Do you understand why Western military doctors won't be very credible especially if they are pushing an unlikely line?

Anyone that has experienced air travel has also experienced the same.

You must be a rare breed. In essence, Alkonis suffered through conditions no worse than if he flew in an airliner.

I'm sure somewhere there's an exception, in the same sense you can find adults that are 4 feet tall or have some other rare condition.

But the very vast majority of people have used airliners without serious side effects. Including me, and I'd be surprised if any of the judges either never used an airliner or experienced serious side effects from it. I'm sorry if he's that one in a million, but fundamentally his story of conking out without warning due to airliner air is negligible.

And that's before him having to admit in court that he swerved a few minutes before the crash - a clear sign to even the slowest-witted he's far from feeling his best and should have stopped. He chose to press on and from that point on what happens next is on him.

Agree with Taiwan. This kind of treatment by a so called ally is appalling.

In the case of Alkonis, I'm not sure why any Americans should seriously expect to not be treated as a flight risk after two Americans sprung Ghosn out of his bail. Americans are trained to prejudicially distrust the Japanese judicial system, to the point we've seen it does incite illegal actions. And Western militaries have a reputation of covering for their men, no matter what.

@virusrexToday 10:10 am JST

If you had a health problem that caused an accident (let's say fainting in front of a car and making it swerve and crash) and the judge simply choose to ignore that claim without any medical argument, would you accept it?

I'd say at some point, a person should realize the objective odds aren't in his favor. Suppose you didn't steal. But the prosecutor manages to find 10 people who say you did, and the CCTV tape shows someone that looks very much like yourself. Or maybe you really are the only one that could have stolen it. In that case, you should probably realize the judge had little choice but to convict you.

Further, Alkonis' legal stance was oxymoronic. First, he pleaded guilty. Then in court he tried to explain why he wasn't. He claimed to be really sorry but as an American he offered a pittance compared to what Americans sue each other for for much less than dead people. Do you think this might objectively be viewed as someone gaming the system and not feeling the least bit of remorse?

@virusrexToday 10:10 am JST

Enough to produce the problem according to the expert witness in the trial.

The American expert witness? And while we complain about the blackness behind the interrogation, do note that no one ever produced the proceedings of any medical examination or interview Alkonis received? Was there "telephone diagnosis"? Did anyone suggest to the doctor to play up the chances of a rare condition? And so on. Would the American expert witness lose more by pushing an "anti-Alkonis" version than a "pro-Alkonis" version?

The criminal conviction standard is the lack of reasonable doubt. Not the lack of all doubt.

What is with this suspended sentence obsession by judges?

First, the idea that the defendant has sacrificed enough - a viewpoint that has been displayed on this thread as well. He lost his job, a lot of his ability to find a new one, blah blah blah. For a politician or anyone who has accumulated enough to not really need a job, such arguments are worthless but for a regular guy it is a bit more persuasive.

Second, jurisprudence. Since the system has sentenced the 99 forceful indecency convicts before him to suspended sentences, it'd be unfair to suddenly raise the bar for convict #100. This is actually a legally colorable stance.

Given these two, the only solution I can see is to either raise the minimum sentence to shut out the suspended sentences, or to specifically write that this crime cannot be processed by a suspended sentence.

@Ricky Kaminski13Today 11:56 am JST

Are you sure? I've actually seen equivalent questions on Quora, like:

https://www.quora.com/Should-gifted-children-be-left-in-regular-classrooms-to-help-low-performing-students-Wouldn-t-it-teach-empathy

Based on the answers from actual victims of such ideas there, it seems anything about teaching compassion and empathy is the pipe dream of an ivory tower 'expert' sitting in the UN who never was himself "sicced" with the task of taking time from his learning (or fun) to teach someone much dumber than him without receiving specialist training or pay. Or if they did ... well, anyone that's sitting in the UN on those committees is a special breed, and perhaps they should not be taking their own tendency to show "compassion" and forcing it onto others.

When implemented into Japan, where class sizes are already larger than the norm in those European countries where such ideas are baked, I can only see two results. First, those kids are told not to make trouble and then politely ignored. Or if the teacher tries to execute the intent of the placement, he'd ask (command!) the better students in his class to help out because his hands are already full with 40 regular kids, and the victims will be answering Quora questions ten years from now.

@virusrex Today 06:02 am JST

You got it wrong, Times Square is interested in having the event, Shibuya is not. If your neighbor wants to make a huge party for something you consider irrelevant, do you feel that you need to do the same just because you can afford it?

His basic point is backed by the law, and yours isn't. As I said, the government can't differentiate between different assemblies based on their assessment of their worth. I have even shown you the part in a Law Textbook where it says that (it's even explicit in listing non-protest events as examples). You may have above average knowledge on disease compared to the JapanToday average, but apparently not in Law.

Thus the only defense a government can proffer is that it can't reasonably support the event. From that point of view, if we are to assume any legitimacy in this decision, Shibuya is indeed saying it CAN'T support the event when mere little Times Square can.

The worth not of every specific demonstration, the worth of people being allowed to demonstrate, which no sane person could think is the same as them being allowed to party in an specific location.

If there are any comparisons, it is this. Where a party is non-political, it doesn't threaten the government, and the only way the government can create a problem for itself is to pick a fight by banning the party. The corollary is that if a government will pick a fight to stop something that doesn't threaten it in any way, what reasonable hopes do you have for it allowing something that DOES threaten it?

At least until it makes sense in the context of Shibuya.

The point is, you can't say everything is hunky-dory as long as people aren't protesting. That's a very poor standard.

never seen the justification for protests being correlated to the results they get.

I agree. However, since you've started the game of requiring "worth" to justify assemblies, well it is self-evident whether an assembly gets the result it aims for is part of its worth, and whether an assembly is likely to get that result is part of the prediction of its worth that precedes any authorization.

de facto standard

Let me point out the "de facto standard" until last year is that the government will take care of New Year and Halloween parties. As for against the locals a) the government doesn't always represent the locals (unfortunately) and b) we are interfering with a constitutional right, which means mere popularity, even if genuine, doesn't cut it.

Again, you are trying to argue about imposing expenditure of resources in a location against the wishes of the locals.

There's no evidence they would spend more than on a protest of comparable size and duration, which you've agreed is a burden the government should be willing to take on. And as I said, the law does not make a differentiation between protest and not-protest, so if you are willing to spend on the protest, you must be willing to spend on the Not-Protest.