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Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

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A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.

Iwao Hakamada's acquittal: Prosecutors have until October 10 to appeal District Court's ruling

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The world's longest-serving death row inmate hailed his historic acquittal as a "complete victory" on Sunday, just days after a Japanese court declared Iwao Hakamada innocent of a 1966 quadruple murder. The 88-year-old former boxer spent 46 years on death row, mostly in solitary confinement. 

The world's longest-serving death row prisoner thanked his supporters for helping him achieve "complete victory" after a Japanese court last week overturned his decades-old murder conviction.

After a long fight for justice led by his sister, 88-year-old Iwao Hakamada was on Thursday declared innocent of the quadruple murder that he spent 46 years on death row for.

"Finally I have won full and complete victory," the former boxer told a group of supporters on Sunday in Shizuoka, the region southwest of Tokyo where the ruling was issued.

"I couldn't wait any longer" to hear the not-guilty verdict, said a smiling Hakamada, sporting a green hat.

"Thank you very much," he added, accompanied by his 91-year-old sister Hideko at the meeting, which was shown on Japanese television.

Japan and the United States are the only major industrialised democracies to retain capital punishment, which has broad support among the Japanese public.

Hakamada is the fifth death row inmate granted a retrial in Japan's post-war history. All four previous cases also resulted in exonerations.


Decades of detention – mostly in solitary confinement with the threat of execution constantly looming over him – have taken a toll on Hakamada's mental health.

His lawyer and supporters have described him as "living in a world of fantasy".

Hakamada was released in 2014 pending the retrial but rarely speaks publicly.

Acquittal not finalised


Despite the retrial verdict, his acquittal isn't finalised – prosecutors reportedly have until October 10 to decide whether to appeal the Shizuoka District Court's ruling.

But they may face an uphill battle, as the court delivered a sweeping rebuke of the prosecution's arguments, saying that investigators fabricated key pieces of evidence.

Hakamada's initial confessions of having robbed and murdered his boss, the man's wife and their two teenage children were obtained through "inhumane" interrogations and mental and physical torture, making them invalid, the ruling said.

Blood-stained clothes used to incriminate him were also ruled a set-up. The court said investigators had put blood on them and planted them in a tank of miso fermented soybean paste to be discovered.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, September 30, 2024

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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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