Hayashi's death penalty finalized

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See this article on The Japan Times website.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Hayashi's death penalty finalized
Verdict in curry poisonings stands despite no direct evidence, motive
Kyodo News

The Supreme Court on Tuesday finalized Masumi Hayashi's death sentence for killing four people with arsenic-laced curry at a 1998 summer festival in the city of Wakayama, rejecting her not-guilty plea and ending an almost decade-long trial.

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It's just water: Masumi Hayashi aims water toward a media crew in the garden of her Wakayama home in August 1998 before her arrest over the fatal curry poisonings in her neighborhood the previous month. KYODO PHOTO

Hayashi, 47, a former insurance saleswoman, was convicted at the district court level of killing the four and sickening 63 others who ate the poisoned curry, although there was no direct evidence to prove her involvement and no clear motive. Her sentence was upheld in a high court appeal. She was also convicted of trying to kill an acquaintance for insurance, as well as her husband, Kenji, 63, a pest exterminator, to collect on policies she had taken out on them.

In a statement released through her lawyers after the decision, Hayashi said: "There is a true culprit somewhere. I'm determined to clear myself of this false conviction."

The top court's Third Petty Bench said circumstantial evidence proves to "a degree that leaves no room for rational doubt" that Hayashi poisoned the curry and said the failure by the lower courts to clarify her motive "does not affect the judgment" that she did it.

Referring to the large impact the poisonings had on society, as well as Hayashi's unrepentant attitude, the court added: "The defendant's criminal responsibility is extremely serious . . . the (top) court has no choice but to approve the death sentence by the district court."

Hayashi's lawyers plan to petition for a retrial.

The district and high courts were unable to clarify Hayashi's motive, but prosecutors insisted she was "infuriated by feeling alienated from housewives in the neighborhood" when she went to where the curry was being prepared on the day of the festival.

Hayashi's counsel challenged in the top court the credibility of expert scientific analysis that showed the arsenic in the stew was identical to samples found in the defendant's home and other locations linked to her, and of a neighbor's testimony that she was left alone near the curry for a certain period.

After pleading not guilty when her Wakayama District Court trial opened in May 1999, Hayashi exercised her right to remain silent. In 2002, she was sentenced to hang.

She broke her silence during her Osaka High Court appeal, again declaring herself innocent. The high court in 2005 nonetheless upheld the sentence, prompting Hayashi's Supreme Court appeal.

The high court also upheld her conviction for trying to murder her husband and a male acquaintance by using arsenic with the aim of obtaining insurance money.

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Devoted husband: Kenji Hayashi, husband of convicted murderer Masumi Hayashi, speaks to the media at his Wakayama apartment Tuesday after the Supreme Court finalized his wife's death sentence over the July 1998 fatal curry poisonings. KYODO PHOTO

Hayashi's counsel was joined by Yoshihiro Yasuda, a well-known criminal lawyer and campaigner against the death penalty, at the top court stage.

The defense argued the investigators dealt with the arsenic samples in a lax manner.

The counsel also said it was possible the witness account of Hayashi minding the curry pots alone could have been mistaken and that in fact it was her daughter.

The counsel also noted Hayashi had no motive to commit a random killing.

Victims of the poisonings are still suffering from aftereffects of arsenic, with one woman saying, "I feel pain because of my deformed fingernails and toenails."

The incident took place on July 25, 1998. A 10-year-old child and a 16-year-old high school girl were among those who died after eating the poisoned curry.

Hayashi's husband was also convicted of insurance fraud and received a short prison term in the late 1990s.

In comments to the media after the final decision, Kenji Hayashi, now living by himself in a Wakayama apartment, said he is confident his wife is innocent.

"(The Supreme Court ruling) is regrettable because I've been trying to prove her innocence up till today," he said before dressing down the entire criminal justice system. His claims covered the gamut from the "flawed police investigation" to the "bogus crime scenario cooked up by prosecutors" and the "false conviction" of his wife by all three courts.

"The Supreme Court only rubber-stamped the rulings of the lower courts and therefore is outrageous," He said. "I will continue to do my utmost to support her and never give in."
 
I did know there was a death penalty in Japan, but from what I read in the above statement, it seems harsh to me, but that is a long running court case.
 
bologna said:
It's crazy that there are still places in the world where they hang you.
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I've been following this case for 11 years, and from what I have read and heard, it seems like the circumstantial evidence was quite strong. I suppose Japan and the U.S. are the only so-called "developed" nations that still have a death penalty, but I think in the case of the U.S., it's hard to get the death penalty with only circumstantial evidence. I may be wrong about that.

In Japan, to avoid protests or terrorist attacks, the date of execution is not announced until after the execution. A convicted prisoner can sit in prison for several years, and then one day suddenly be told, "Today is the day." For example, the death sentence of MATSUMOTO Chizuo (a.k.a. "ASAHARA Shoko") was confirmed by the Japanese Supreme Court in September 2006, but he has yet to be executed.
 
Japan's legal system doesn't have real life sentence. Even when a criminal is sentenced to life penalty, it's likely he/she will be released after years of servitude in prison. You could argue till the cows come home over whether death is penalty right or wrong but death penalty won't be abolished as long as they don't change this system.
 
By Japanese law, someone sentenced to "indefinite imprisonment" (there is so "life sentence" in Japan in the strict sense) must serve at least ten years before being eligible for parole. In recent decades, no one has been paroled before serving at least 20 years, and I read that the average for parole is 27 years. But I also read that most inmates never qualify for parole, and end up staying in prison until death. Still, Buttobi's point about the lack of a real life sentence without the possibility of parole is a major reason the death sentence is still supported by a majority of Japanese. But I hear there is a movement among some mainstream Diet members to introduce legislation that would create a true life sentence and abolish the death penalty.
 
The death penalty in Japan: Just plead guilty and die

Here's an article on death penalty in Japan from The Economist. It doesn't really relate to this case, since the woman never confessed, but it is an interesting article.
The death penalty in Japan: Just plead guilty and die
Mar 13th 2008, TOKYO

The wheels start to wobble on Japan’s judicial juggernaut

IT WAS a rarity for Japan: two notable acquittals within a month. On March 5th Mitsuko Katagishi, a 60-year-old from southern Kyushu island, was acquitted of charges that she had killed her brother and set fire to his house. The case against her rested on prosecution claims that she had confessed her crime to a cellmate during months in police detention. The presiding judge chided the police for planting the cellmate and dismissed the evidence as not credible. In a country with a conviction rate of over 99%—and where even defence lawyers urge clients to plead guilty—this was a deep embarrassment.

It follows a farcical trial in February of 11 mainly elderly defendants accused of vote-buying in Kagoshima, also on Kyushu. The trial collapsed when it became plain that the police had fabricated the evidence—though not before one defendant had died and another been subjected to over 700 hours of interrogation and 400 days in detention. All the accused had been ground down until they signed confessions of guilt.

In response to these problems, the authorities have closed ranks. Japan’s justice minister, Kunio Hatoyama, argues with casuistic skill that the vote-buying case cannot be described as a false prosecution: that would imply the real culprits are still at large when, happily for all, there are no culprits at all. But such complacency is wearing thin. Two changes are afoot in Japan’s criminal-justice system. One is the introduction next year of trials in which a lay jury of six will join three judges to adjudicate in criminal cases, with convictions secured by majority vote. This may encourage more popular involvement in the criminal-justice system. The other is the emergence of establishment figures prepared to question the shortcomings of that system, and especially of the death penalty, which means victims pay an irreversible price for miscarriages of justice.
Shizuka Kamei, a former chief in the National Police Agency and now a member of the Diet (parliament), describes Japan’s high conviction rate as “abnormal”. The police, he says, are under more pressure to find any culprit for a crime than to find the real one. To save face, senior officers are reluctant to highlight mistakes made by subordinates. Worse, prosecutors are not bound to disclose material that they choose not to use in court. Many false prosecutions never come to light.

The notion of being innocent until proven guilty is not strong in Japan. Mr Hatoyama calls it “an idea which I want to constrain”. But confessions are important and the courts rely heavily upon them. Apart from helping secure convictions, they are widely interpreted as expressions of remorse. A defendant not only risks a longer sentence if he insists he is innocent, he is also much less likely to be granted bail before trial—often remaining isolated in police custody, without access to counsel, for long enough to confess. Toshiko Terada, a private lawyer, calls this hitojichi shiho—hostage justice. Perversely, where little supporting evidence exists, the system helps hardened criminals, who know that if they do not confess they are unlikely to be indicted. Innocents, on the other hand, may crack—as in the Kagoshima case, or in a notorious 2002 r*** case when the accused confessed under pressure but was released last October after the real culprit came forward.

Growing concerns about such miscarriages have helped forge an unlikely parliamentary alliance between politicians of the left pushing to abolish the death penalty, Mr Kamei (who in other areas is an arch-conservative) and Koichi Kato, a former secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Last year Japan executed nine people, compared with America’s 42; it also has 106 people on death row. But its murder rate is only one-fifth that of America so its execution rate is roughly comparable. Some of Mr Hatoyama’s predecessors have been unwilling to sign death warrants, but in the past 18 months executions have leapt (see chart), including several accused who were elderly and infirm.

Executions take place in extreme secrecy under the auspices of the Justice Ministry. Prisoners are kept in near-isolation and are not usually informed that their time is up until less than an hour before the sentence is carried out—often after waiting for decades. The names of those executed were made public for the first time only in December. Not even Diet members may inspect a working gallows, and many people do not know that hanging is Japan’s method of execution. Bureaucratic secrecy has served to suppress debate about the death penalty—and give ordinary people a sense that justice is something best left to the authorities.
Click to expand...
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10854797 (requires premium access)
 
Japan's police system is seriously fucked up. I experienced this first-hand. When I reported a serious theft (500,000 yen) by someone I had been very close to a year after the fact, the interviewing officer treated me as if I was the criminal. Why I waited a year to report it is a long story, but the person I suspected was the only one who had the means, opportunity, and motive. Still, I had no solid proof, since the security video from the ATM where the money was withdrawn had long since been erased. In other words, I was causing a problem for this cop, because by reporting a crime that they could not easily solve, I was damaging their statistical record. The guy was obviously extremely annoyed, and harassed me until I finally asked, "Have I committed some kind of crime here?" Visibly embarrassed, he responded, "No, of course not." So I filled out the crime report while he sat there with his arms crossed, frowning the whole time. For all I know, he put the report in the shredder as soon as I left.

A young acquaintance of mine was brutally murdered two years ago, and the police have failed to capture the perpetrator despite the fact that there was a witness who got a good look at the murderer and there were clear footprints left in the mud at the crime scene. You should see the police sketches of the suspect. They look like they were scrawled by 5th graders. Completely useless. And the fact that they had clear footprints was quickly leaked to the press, so the perpetrator was immediately alerted that he should dispose of the shoes. Didn't it occur to any of them that maybe they should hide the fact that they had footprints, so they could catch the perpetrator unawares? :...:

The Japanese police are incompetent bureaucrats who care only about their own career advancement, which means maintaining superficially "good" statistics.

The case of the young sumo wrestler who was beaten to death by his fellow wrestlers while their coach watched is a textbook example of the police deliberately trying to cover up a crime because they were not 100% sure they could get a conviction. Can you believe they actually tried to have the victim cremated before his family could even get a look at his body? But at least that case was exposed by the media. It seems that people here are finally starting to question the whole legal system. I hope the introduction of jury trials will help improve things.
 
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