Spotlight fixed on Japan’s secretive death row

“My feelings about Mr. Hakamada remain the same — I believe he is innocent,” said Norimichi Kumamoto, who now reveals that he argued for acquittal but was outvoted by two other judges in their secret deliberations before handing down their ruling in 1968. As the junior judge, he was tasked with writing the death sentence order.

The case — and Kumamoto’s stunning admission last year — has fixed an unprecedented spotlight on Japan’s secretive criminal justice system, causing a stir in legal circles and raising questions about the death penalty in a country where it’s rarely questioned.

Among those clamoring for a re-trial are Amnesty International, Japanese boxers and Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the American boxer imprisoned nearly 20 years for three murders before the convictions were overturned.

The case has also illuminated all the elements that critics say make Japanese law enforcement inhumane: heavy-handed interrogations without lawyers present, over-reliance on confessions, an arbitrary capital punishment system that can keep inmates on death row for decades and then hang them with no advance notice. Discussion of the case coincides with a rapid increase in the number of death sentences. Of 165 people on death row, seven have been executed so far this year, compared with just one in 2005.

Hakamada’s case began with a fire on June 30, 1966, at the home of an executive of a soybean paste company where he worked. Hakamada said he helped douse the flames, whereupon the charred remains of the bodies of the executive, his wife and two children were discovered — all stabbed to death.

Two months later, Hakamada, then 30, was arrested and charged based on a confession and a pair of his pajamas that contained tiny amounts of blood and gasoline. He recanted the confession and pleaded not guilty at his trial. Prosecutors discarded the pajamas and presented a separate set of blood-soaked clothes they said he wore for the killings.