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U.S. | I'm a Death Row Pastor. They're Just Ordinary Folks

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In the early 1970s I was a North Carolinian, white boy from the South attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and working in East Harlem as part of a program. In my senior year, I visited men at the Bronx House of Detention. I had never been in a prison or jail, but people in East Harlem were dealing with these places and the police all the time. This experience truly turned my life around.

Pope Francis may meet Iwao Hakamada seeking retrial over death sentence

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Iwao Hakamada and his sister
Arrangements are being made for a meeting between Pope Francis and Iwao Hakamada, who is seeking a retrial for his conviction in a 1966 quadruple homicide, during the pontiff’s visit to Japan in late November, it was learned Saturday.

The meeting may be held just before or after a Mass planned at the Tokyo Dome, according to supporters of Hakamada, 83, whose death sentence was suspended in 2014.

It is still uncertain, however, whether the meeting will become a reality due in part to Hakamada’s health problems, the supporters said.

The pope opposes the death penalty, and any remarks he may make about Japan’s system of capital punishment are expected to attract attention.

According to supporters, Hakamada’s lawyers and others sent a letter to the pope last year, expressing hope for a meeting.

Hakamada was arrested and indicted in 1966 over the murder of 4 people in the same family in Shizuoka Prefecture. His death sentence was finalized in 1980.

In 2014, about 48 years after the arrest, he was released from prison after Shizuoka District Court granted a retrial to him. But the Tokyo High Court overrode the decision in 2018.

The suspension of the death sentence and imprisonment was maintained, but Hakamada’s side has appealed to the Supreme Court.

Source:  japantimes.co.jp, Staff, September 14, 2019


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Japan
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