Japan | Retrial of Hakamata: Speedy Proceedings, Early Verdict Should Be Given Highest Importance

The 87-year-old defendant was deemed unfit to appear in court due to communication difficulties engendered by his long detention. His trial must not be prolonged.

The Shizuoka District Court has begun the retrial of Iwao Hakamata, whose death sentence was previously finalized over the 1966 murder and robbery of a family of four in Shizuoka Prefecture. Retrials are held in cases when sufficient evidence that is likely to prove the defendant’s innocence is newly found.

Hakamata has been recognized as mentally incompetent and exempted from attending the retrial. His sister, Hideko, entered a plea on his behalf, asking for his acquittal. “Please grant Iwao true freedom,” she said. However, prosecutors reiterated their contention that Hakamata committed the crime.

With both the prosecutors and the defense team having submitted numerous pieces of evidence, the retrial is likely to have more than a dozen hearings. The retrial is scheduled to end in March next year, but it is believed that it could be delayed.

Fifty-seven years have passed since the incident occurred. It is unacceptable to protract the trial further. Both sides need to narrow down the main points in presenting evidence and expedite proceedings.

The focus of the retrial will be on whether a shirt and other articles of clothing — found in a tank at a miso factory near the crime scene about a year after the incident — were worn by Hakamata while committing the crime. Reddish bloodstains remained on the clothing, and the district court, which first sentenced him to death, found that the garments had been worn by Hakamata at the time of the incident.

On the other hand, the Tokyo High Court, which granted a retrial to Hakamata, recognized based on the results of experiments and other evidence that the reddish color of bloodstains would likely have disappeared if such fabric had been immersed in miso for more than a year. The court also stated that the claimed state of the clothing was unnatural and could have been fabricated by investigative authorities.

The prosecutors said that at the retrial, they would attempt to prove otherwise regarding the reddish color of the bloodstains based on expert testimony and other evidence. However, this point of contention has been examined carefully in Hakamata’s past trial hearings. To avoid rehashing the past, it is essential for the prosecutors to present clear evidence that would establish his guilt.

It must be said that the trial’s path to reach this point has been extremely long.

Hakamata filed a request for a retrial in 1981. The Shizuoka District Court granted a retrial in 2014. As a result, his execution was suspended and he was released.

Yet even after that, judicial proceedings to decide whether to start the retrial continued for nine more years as court decisions made several turns. It should be said that Hakamata has been tormented by the judiciary with his fate on the brink of the death penalty.

It has become apparent that the current retrial system should be reviewed. Once a decision is made to open a retrial, should the case immediately be retried to allow the prosecution and defense sides to exhaust their arguments in open court? A situation must not be repeated in which a trial is allowed to be dragged out for more than half a century.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Oct. 28, 2023)

Source: japannews.yomiuri.co.jp, Editorial, October 28, 2023

_____________________________________________________________________

Twitter/X | Facebook | Telegram | Contact Us

Florida executes Michael Tanzi

Florida on Tuesday executed a death row inmate described by one local detective as a "fledgling serial killer" for the murder of a beloved Miami Herald employee. Florida executed Michael Tanzi on Tuesday, 25 years after the murder of beloved Miami Herald employee Janet Acosta, who was attacked in broad daylight on her lunch break in 2000. Michael Tanzi, 48, was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford and pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. ET.

South Carolina | Man who ambushed off-duty cop to face firing squad in second execution of its kind

Mikal Mahdi, 48, who was found guilty of killing an off-duty police officer and a convenience store worker, is the second inmate scheduled to executed by South Carolina's new firing squad A murderer who ambushed and shot an off duty police officer eight times before burning his body in a killing spree is set to become the second person to die by firing squad. South Carolina's highest court has rejected the last major appeal from Mikal Mahdi, 41, who is to be put to death with three bullets to the heart at 6pm on April 11 at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Mahdi's lawyers said his original lawyers put on a shallow case trying to spare his life that didn't call on relatives, teachers or people who knew him and ignored the impact of weeks spent in solitary confinement in prison as a teen.

Afghanistan | Four men publicly executed by Taliban with relatives of victims shooting them 'six or seven times' at sport stadium

Four men have been publicly executed by the Taliban, with relatives of their victims shooting them several times in front of spectators at a sport stadium. Two men were shot around six to seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the centre of Afghanistan's Badghis province, witnesses told an AFP journalist in the city. The men had been 'sentenced to retaliatory punishment' for shooting other men, after their cases were 'examined very precisely and repeatedly', the statement said. 'The families of the victims were offered amnesty and peace but they refused.'

South Carolina executes Mikal Mahdi

Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers A man facing the death penalty for committing two murders was executed by firing squad on Friday, the second such execution in the US state of South Carolina this year. Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers, an off-duty police officer, and the murder of a convenience store employee three days earlier. According to a statement from the prison, "the execution was performed by a three-person firing squad at 6:01 pm (2201 GMT)," with Mahdi pronounced dead four minutes later.

Lethal Injection, Electric Chair, or Firing Squad? An Inhumane Decision for Death Row Prisoners

South Carolina resumed executions with the firing squad killing of Brad Sigmon last month. Mikal Madhi’s execution date is days away. The curtain shrieked as it was yanked open to reveal a 67-year-old man tied to a chair. His arms were pulled uncomfortably behind his back. The red bull’s-eye target on his chest rose and fell as he desperately attempted to still his breathing. The man, Brad Sigmon, smiled at his attorney, Bo King, seated in the front row before guards placed a black bag over his head. King said Sigmon appeared to be trying his best to put on a brave face for those who had come to bear witness.

USA | Why the firing squad may be making a comeback

South Carolina plans to execute Mikal Mahdi on Friday for the murder of a police officer, draping a hood over his head and firing three bullets into his heart. The choice to die by firing squad – rather than lethal injection or the electric chair – was Mahdi’s own, his attorney said last month: “Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils.” If it proceeds, Mahdi’s execution would be the latest in a recent string of events that have put the spotlight on the firing squad as a handful of US death penalty states explore alternatives to lethal injection, by far the nation’s dominant execution method.

I spent 16 years in solitary in South Carolina. This is what it did to me. | Opinion

South Carolinian Randy Poindexter writes about the effects 16 years of solitary confinement had on him ahead of South Carolina’s planned execution of Mikal Mahdi , who spent months in solitary as a young man. For 16 years, I lived in a concrete cell. Twenty-three hours a day, every day, for more than 3,000 days, South Carolina kept me in solitary confinement. I was a young man before I was sent to solitary — angry, untreated and unwell. I made mistakes. But I wasn’t sentenced to madness. That’s what solitary did to me. My mental health worsened with each passing day. At first, paranoia and depression set in. Then, hallucinations and self-mutilation. I talked to people who weren’t there. I cut myself to feel something besides despair. I could do nothing as four of my friends and fellow prisoners took their own lives rather than endure another day of torturous isolation.

Louisiana | Lawyers of Jessie Hoffman speak about their final moments before execution

As Louisiana prepared its first execution in 15 years, a team of lawyers from Loyola Law were working to save Jessie Hoffman’s life. “I was a young lawyer three years out of law school, and Jessie was almost finished with his appeals at that time, and my boss told me we needed to file something for Jessie because he’s in danger of being executed,” Kappel said. Kappel and her boss came up with a civil lawsuit to file that said since they wouldn’t give him a protocol for his execution, he was being deprived of due process, and the lawsuit was in the legal process for the next 10 years.

Arizona | The cruelty of isolation: There’s nothing ‘humane’ about how we treat the condemned

On March 19, I served as a witness to the execution of a man named Aaron Gunches, Arizona’s first since 2022. During his time on death row, he begged for death and was ultimately granted what is likely more appropriately described as an emotionless state-assisted suicide. This experience has profoundly impacted me, leading to deep reflection on the nature of death, humanity, and the role we play in our final moments. When someone is in the end stages of life, we talk about hospice care, comfort, care, easing suffering and humane death. We strive for a “good death” — a peaceful transition. I’ve seen good ones, and I’ve seen bad, unplanned ones.

'No Warning': The Death Penalty In Japan

Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite criticism over how it is carried out. Tokyo: Capital punishment in Japan is under scrutiny again after the world's longest-serving death row prisoner, Iwao Hakamada, was awarded $1.4 million in compensation this week following his acquittal last year in a retrial. Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite international criticism over how it is carried out.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog