Editorial

14:59 JST, January 7, 2025

It is clear that there are deficiencies in the current legal system, under which it can take decades to finalize a not guilty ruling in a retrial. The government must urgently discuss how to prevent trials from becoming so protracted.

Following the acquittal decision in a retrial of Iwao Hakamata, who had been sentenced to death for the 1966 murder-robbery of four members of a family in Shizuoka Prefecture, the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office and the Shizuoka prefectural police released reports at the end of last year that examined and summarized the problems with the investigation and trial.

The prosecutors’ report found that the prosecutors at the time “solicited a confession from Hakamata by making statements that seemingly branded him as the culprit.”........

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