Japan sees no executions in 2024 for 2nd year in row, possibly linked to Hakamada acquittal

TOKYO -- Japan is set to register no executions in 2024 for the second consecutive year, possibly affected by the high-profile acquittal of freed death row inmate Iwao Hakamada.

It became certain on Dec. 27 that no inmate will be hanged in 2024 because the Act on Penal Detention Facilities and Treatment of Inmates and Detainees stipulates that executions are not carried out on Saturdays, Sundays or from Dec. 29 to Jan. 3. With no executions occurring in 2023, the period without a capital sentence being carried out has reached two years and five months. This unusually long duration in recent years is gathering attention over whether it will become a turning point for the country's death penalty system.

The Code of Criminal Procedure mandates that the minister of justice must order an execution within six months of a death sentence that was finalized, but in practice, it is left to the minister's discretion.

Executions were suspended for about three years and four months from November 1989, following four cases where death row inmates were acquitted in retrials. After resuming in 1993, executions were carried out almost every year, with only 2011, 2020 and 2023 having none.

The most recent execution was on July 26, 2022, after then Justice Minister Yoshihisa Furukawa ordered the execution of then 39-year-old Tomohiro Kato, who had been involved in a massacre in Tokyo's Akihabara district.

However, Yasuhiro Hanashi, who succeeded Furukawa as justice minister, was dismissed in November 2022 due to inappropriate remarks about the death penalty. His gaffe, along with its aftermath, led to his successors, Ken Saito, Ryuji Koizumi and Hideki Makihara, not ordering any executions. Current Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki only took office in November 2024.

One possible reason for the continued lack of executions is the case of now 88-year-old Iwao Hakamada, who was once sentenced to death for the June 1966 murder of four family members in the then Shizuoka Prefecture city of Shimizu (now part of the city of Shizuoka), but was later acquitted in a retrial.

His acquittal had been expected since a decision over his retrial was finalized in March 2023.

Hakamada's acquittal marked the fifth post-World War II case of a death row inmate being found not guilty in a retrial. While public support for the death penalty is cited as a reason for its retention, the irreversible nature of the punishment means mistakes cannot be tolerated. The shock of discovering the wrongful conviction in a case with a finalized death sentence may have led the Justice Ministry to conclude that the conditions for carrying out executions are not in place.

Regarding the death penalty system, an expert panel including former top public prosecutors and police officials as well as Diet members drew up a report in November urging the national government to discuss the abolition, reform and improvement of the system. The expert panel was set up at the urging of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, which opposes capital punishment.

According to the Justice Ministry, there are 106 death row inmates, with about 50 requesting retrials. In 2024, while two death sentences were finalized, two inmates died in prison, and Hakamada was released from death row after 44 years.

Source: mainichi.jp, Kentaro Mikami, Tokyo City News Department, December 30, 2024

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