Editorial
Lessons must be learned from Sugaya's false conviction, 17 1/2 years behind bars
The sight of three judges bowing their heads to Toshikazu Sugaya, a man incarcerated for more than 17 years over a murder he did not commit and was eventually acquitted of, said everything about the case.
Sugaya was found not guilty Friday in a long-awaited retrial. We are happy that spring has finally arrived for Sugaya, who was robbed of 17 1/2 years of freedom after he was arrested without justification over the 1990 murder of a 4-year-old girl in Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture.
When Sugaya's retrial began in October last year, public prosecutors argued that deliberations should be kept to a minimum and a ruling be handed down quickly. Defense lawyers, on the other hand, called for the reasons for his false conviction to be exposed in court.
Siding with lawyers, the Utsunomiya District Court questioned an expert witness who testified that DNA tests performed at the time of Sugaya's initial conviction were premature. Tapes of Sugaya's conversations with public prosecutors were also played in court, and the evidence was inspected to a certain degree.
But the court bears responsibility for the delay in acquitting Sugaya. In 1997, lawyers tested a sample of Sugaya's hair while he was behind bars and found that the DNA did not match the sample taken from the victim's clothing. But in 2000, the Supreme Court dismissed Sugaya's appeal without any reference to the DNA tests, confirming his life sentence. It was eight years later that the Utsunomiya District Court dismissed Sugaya's request for a retrial. During this time, the statute of limitations for prosecution of the murder expired. Not only was Sugaya's release delayed; the chance to arrest the real culprit was also lost.
In acquitting Sugaya, Presiding Judge Masanobu Sato apologized, saying, "As a judge, I am truly sorry." It is extremely rare for a judge to make such an apology, but the court needed to take responsibility.
Still, the full story of how Sugaya came to be falsely charged and convicted has not been unraveled. How did police pressure Sugaya to make a confession? How did the court determine the admissibility of an initial DNA test which found that Sugaya's DNA matched the DNA sample taken from the victim's clothing? Why was the court slow in approving a decision to conduct another DNA test? Several unanswered questions remain.
Internal investigations at various organizations have their limits. This month the Japan Federation of Bar Associations compiled a statement requesting that an investigative committee be set up to probe the causes of false judgments, suggesting that a third party should examine the issue. Such investigations have been performed overseas, and we want the government to take action to set up such a committee.
As of June last year, DNA tests had proved that a total of 240 people in the United States had been falsely accused of crimes -- 17 of whom were on death row. In Japan, meanwhile, it recently emerged that police obtained an arrest warrant for the wrong person due to an error by Kanagawa Prefectural Police when registering the person's DNA. While the accuracy of DNA tests has increased, it is humans who process the data, and as such, we must not overemphasize DNA results.
At the same time we want scientists and technical officers from the National Research Institute of Police Science to inspect Sugaya's case, a move opening the path toward applying cutting-edge technology.
The lessons to be learned from Sugaya's case are wide-ranging. The case sounds an alarm bell over investigations that attach to much importance to confessions. It indicates once again that suspect interviews should be recorded in their entirety. At the same time, news organizations cannot evade responsibility -- at the time of the arrest, news organizations reported on the case as if Sugaya were the criminal. There also remains criticism that we should have paid quicker attention to what Sugaya was saying. We need to put all of these lessons to use in the future.
(Mainichi Japan) March 27, 2010