Aki-Essays: contemplation ahead of the lay judge system (4-13-09)

As the Supreme Court’s letters sent on November 28th would notify 295,000 Japanese citizens of candidacy for six lay judges at trial, the inaugural lay judge system is scheduled to kick in on May 21st this year. These chosen six lay judges will cooperate with three professional judges to decide what punishment a defendant will receive.

All of these judges will engage only in most serious cases, most of which are associated with a death or severe injuries, such as murders or violent robberies, so a judge’s decision carries a major weight, leading to verdicts as heavy as capital punishment or life imprisonment. Therefore, once the chosen individuals accepted the responsibility, they should definitely be judicious.

Opportune or not, before the implementation of the system the news of two serious murder cases, both occurred within the last two years, was spread across the nation, and these cases gave citizens an opportunity to consider what decisions they would make.

On August 24th, 2007, a trio of nefarious men--two jobless men, aged 32 and 40, and a 36-year-old male employee of the Asahi newspaper [incidentally, why are the jobs important?]--all of whom first virtually met with each other on a dark website--which had recruited those who would conduct a crime--and conspired to kidnap a 31-year-old woman, a stranger, in Nagoya, Aichi prefecture. Confined in a car, the woman begged for her life. Regardless of her fears and hopes, these men mangled her with a hammer, asphyxiated her by wrapping her head with a bag and buried the corpse in a mountainous area of Gifu prefecture after stealing money. Followingly, one of those culprits put the Aichi police onto the crime, being scared of the death penalty, and eventually all of them were arrested. (The website was closed on August 27th.)

Accordingly, the Nagoya district court was held on this incident on March 18th this year, and decisions were concluded: while both the aged 38 and the aged 33 were sentenced to death, the verdict on the 42-year-old was mitigated to life imprisonment because he snitched on the group to the police.

In April 2008, in Koto ward, Tokyo, a 33-year-old man forced open the door of one of his neighbors in his condominium building, threatened the resident, a 23-year-old lady, with a kitchen knife which had been placed near the entrance and killed her with it. He dismembered the body and flushed the pieces down the toilet. Later, he was arrested.

After the perpetrator was put between the death penalty demanded by the plaintiffs’ side and life imprisonment done by his side, eventually the latter decision was concluded on February 18th this year. In response to the result at the Tokyo district court, the prosecution has been proceeding to the Supreme Court.

So, being involved with these two cruel cases, the plaintiffs believed that the death penalty was most severe to the convicts and desired it. But is this true? To be an argument against their such notion, there are people facing grim problems and preferring escaping to death.

For example, there are patients suffering from severe diseases accompanying acute pains or sorts of physical or psychological problems, and eventually euthanasia could serve itself as an option to take.

And, for the last year again, the number of people who committed suicide was reported to be over 30,000. Many victims of this kind dread the days of payments due, feeling hopeless in preparing them, and choose to kill themselves and be free from financial pressure.

Thus, the death penalty might not precisely meet the request of the plaintiffs, if it means that the defendant goes through the fears and pains that the victim had been afflicted with. Neither will life in jail--the second heaviest sentence--accompany the fears and pains given by a killer. Moreover, a prisoner can be released on parole after 10 years if he or she behaves well, as the average time to get parole is said to be about 20 years after incarceration.

This said, when judges and the bereaved relatives of a murdered victim seeks for the most suitable punishment for the criminal perhaps between the death penalty and life imprisonment, while applying rehabilitation to the defendant should never be a negligible option, the intensities of the fears and pains of the victim should be grasped as accurately as possible. Then, when the bereaved relatives tend to exaggerate the intensities of the fears and pains of the victim more or less (bereaved relatives have been able to participate in trials since last November), lay judges should keep composure in the process of settling on a best decision.

(“In a manner of speaking,” Japan is said to be the only developed country to hand the death sentence to a convict. [I don’t follow your meaning] If this feature involves the idea of reincarnation about Buddhism, in which the convict will be reincarnated as a much less desired life form like a bug after execution, the belief as to karma presumes that cockroaches don’t live happy lives.)

As long as lay judges lack years of legal training, the mass media will also be responsible for their decision-making [unclear on meaning], to bear on how the public sees a defendant. Unfortunately, Japanese media don’t reflect a widest range of opinions about and interpretations of an incident because traditionally reporters from media companies flock into a team to investigate the case. [what do you mean?] While it’s important to try to make a systemic change across media companies to enable comparison between different information sources, however, still, to minimize misunderstandings of the public, the team of reporters can and should take a balanced position and exercise high accuracy in telecasting or publishing more abundant information.

The manner of publicizing is a factor for citizens speculating the strengths of the fears and pains of a victim. Public views must rely much on how the media translate an incident while they introduce the background of the culprit, his/her life history, social status and living conditions.

For instance, the culprit might have been a member of more difficult part of the economy and urged to perpetrate a murder. If the mass media neglect to refer to the details of the culprit’s life, both old and recent ones, the general sentiment about the culprit must lean toward a harsher sentence, considering him/her to merely be a killer and an outcast. Although the information about the defendant is prepared by professional judges, such preconceptions formed via the works of the media could be difficult to wash off.

Back to the 2007 murder case in Nagoya, passed under the incumbent justice system the death sentence for the two seem desirable from the perspective of the prosecutor and the plaintiffs. Yet, I, taking the general respect to the death sentence, can’t fully understand why the verdict to the guy who had confessed to the crime was exempted from execution. In fact this man conspired with two others and the motivation for telling on themselves was perhaps fears about the death penalty. In the society with plenty of such hazardous websites, studies about what drove those three criminals to the website must lead to preventive actions against recurrences, as these guys may just be the tip of the iceberg, as it’s one possible action to sentence capital punishment to online haunts of the sort. [why punish free speech?]

On the 2008 murder case in Koto ward, with no sufficient information about the convict but how he murdered and disposed of the lady, I don’t feel up to making my own opinions.

After all, I may wish the cohort of those three convicts would be sent to Afghanistan or Pakistan to work as peacekeepers near the hotbeds of the Taliban and/or Al-Qaeda. Strenuous labor there would be accompanied with a high incidence of being shot or bombed.

Aiming to facilitate legal proceedings, the lay judge system is ready to take effect in this virtually homogeneous country whose prejudice amongst citizens is less visible than other developed nations which have yet experienced trials under the lay judge system, many times. [I don’t understand this; how does being a seemingly “homogeneous” society come to bear at all on objectivity? If anything, if Japan really were a homogeneous society, I should think that there would be far more bias against people who are different.]

On Friday, April 10th, the Supreme Court disclosed that a candidate out of 5,593 citizens would be chosen for a court case. If such a “lucky” candidate declines to take on the responsibilities including studying about the defendant with their background in a limited time, he or she will have to pay a fine [pay a fine? What do you mean?]. It’s the situation I’m dreading.