Editorial
Hope for new era of retrials for those falsely convicted
The Supreme Court has decided to open a retrial of two men convicted of murder that occurred in the Fukawa district of Tone, Ibaraki Prefecture, in 1967. The two men, Shoji Sakurai, 62, and Takao Sugiyama, 63, have been released on parole after serving their life prison terms.
The credibility of their confessions was the focus of contention during court deliberations on whether to open a retrial: unlike the widely-publicized Ashikaga case, in which a new DNA test strongly suggested the convict is not the perpetrator and prompted a retrial, no evidence clearly showing the convicts in the Fukawa case are innocent has been found. However, the Tokyo High Court and the Supreme Court made their decisions after comprehensively examining new evidence submitted after the two demanded a retrial, and evidence on which they were found guilty.
The Supreme Court decided in 1975 to open a retrial of the convict in the so-called Shiratori case on the grounds that the principle of "benefit of the doubt in favor of the defendant" should apply to retrials of convicts. Since then, many of those found guilty of serious offenses such as murder have been acquitted in their retrials.
Since the 1990s, however, many district courts' decisions to open retrials of convicts have been overturned by high courts in response to appeals by prosecutors. However, courts can make erroneous judgments, and the latest decision by the Supreme Court, which has opened the door for new retrials, should be supported.
After Sakurai and Sugiyama filed their second request for a retrial, prosecutors released new evidence -- a testimony provided by a neighbor of the incident scene to the effect that two people spotted near the scene at the time of the crime were not Sakurai and Sugiyama and an expert's opinion made by Ibaraki Prefectural Police showing that hair left near the victim's body did not match that of either of the two. One cannot help but wonder why such important evidence that raised doubts that the two committed the crime had not been released for 30 years.
Under the Code of Criminal Procedure amended in 2004, defense lawyers are allowed to demand a wider scope of evidence of crime cases held by prosecutors. However, it does not require that all evidence be fully released prior to trials, as the Japan Federation of Bar Associations is demanding.
Lay judges make judgments based on evidence submitted to courts. If prosecutors conceal evidence favorable to defendants, it is impossible to ensure fair trials. The way evidence is released needs to be reviewed. Prosecutors should at least be legally required to fully release all evidence they have in trials of serious crimes and retrials.
The two convicts in the Fukawa case were reportedly forced to confess to the crime during questioning. The Fukawa case, as well as the Ashikaga case, has thus highlighted problems involving investigations in which investigators place too much emphasis on confessions by suspects. The courts that convicted the two should scrutinize why judges in charge failed to pay enough attention to unnatural changes in their statements on the incident.
Tape recordings of their confessions during questioning were released by prosecutors after the two convicts filed their second request for a retrial, but defense lawyers subsequently found clear signs that they had been edited.
The latest decision by the Supreme Court will certainly have a huge influence on discussions on the pros and cons of recording the questioning of crime suspects. Police and prosecutors are reluctant to record the whole process of interrogations. However, the revelations have demonstrated that partial recordings can allow law enforcers to alter their contents.
(Mainichi Japan) December 17, 2009