Japan | Court dismisses case on inmate executed while seeking retrial

OSAKA—The Osaka District Court on May 14 dismissed a case seeking a total of 16.5 million yen ($112,230) in state compensation for three lawyers who represented a death row inmate executed while his retrial request was active.

In filing the lawsuit, the three claimed that the rights of their defense were violated and they suffered emotional distress due to the death of their client, a former yakuza member, during the request period.

While the court said in its ruling that "careful consideration is required," it concluded that "the constant repetition of requests for retrial will make execution virtually impossible on a permanent basis."

The three plaintiffs had served as defense lawyers for the retrial of former death row inmate Keizo Okamoto (nee Kawamura), a former high-ranking member of a crime organization. Okamoto's death sentence for robbery and murder, among other charges, was finalized in 2004.

Even so, Okamoto said he did not intend to commit a robbery and sought a correction to his sentence. His execution in December 2018 occurred in the midst of his fourth retrial request.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that as defense attorneys they were "entrusted with the life of a death row inmate," and that executing Okamoto made it impossible for them to confirm the facts presented against their client.

His death also “made it difficult to pursue our mission of correcting the wrongful verdict,” according to them.

The plaintiffs claimed that the central government was liable for “obstruction of proof.”

The state refuted this by citing that the Code of Criminal Procedure specifies that “a request for a retrial does not have the effect of suspending the execution of a sentence."

It expanded on its counterargument, saying, "There is no legal obligation to refrain from executing an individual during a request for retrial, and it does not constitute a violation of the right to counsel."

The practice of waiting to execute death row inmates awaiting retrial occurred for some time after World War II, taking the possibility of wrongful convictions into consideration.

However, criticism over "life extension" grew as many death row inmates began to request retrials.

The execution of a death row inmate awaiting retrial in 1999 was the single outlier until 2017 where a series of executions were carried out.

Kana Sasakura, a professor at Konan University and an expert on the death penalty, offered the United States' protocol for these situations—death row executions are put off until the court reaches a final verdict if there is a motion that constitutes a request for a retrial.

Source: asahi.com, T. Otaki, May 14, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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