Japan: Capital punishment for a minor

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVlkJtujhRginAGLtsc-uM_P5tF3vO5-or0Kf3TUk6hyBaC56OpL2E-QtD7kElcHG3CHlrYWVyXfW7lv1P9hGp0TRJEbgTMZwTo_wZaYm5i0Jlo3vcL3CpgUbwB_wpwl8dpCPOnMA2KPk/s1600/Tokyo+execution+chamber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Death chamber at Tokyo Detention Center" border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVlkJtujhRginAGLtsc-uM_P5tF3vO5-or0Kf3TUk6hyBaC56OpL2E-QtD7kElcHG3CHlrYWVyXfW7lv1P9hGp0TRJEbgTMZwTo_wZaYm5i0Jlo3vcL3CpgUbwB_wpwl8dpCPOnMA2KPk/s400/Tokyo+execution+chamber.jpg" title="Death chamber at Tokyo Detention Center" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Death chamber at Tokyo Detention Center</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">The Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the death sentence given in a lay judge trial to a 24-year-old man for murders he committed when he was a minor raises questions about the lay judge trial system and capital punishment. These include whether the lay judges correctly understood the spirit of the Juvenile Law in sentencing the defendant to death. It was the 1st death sentence handed down on a minor in a lay judge trial.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The murders took place in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, in 2010 when Yutaro Chiba was 18 - meaning he fell under the purview of the Juvenile Law. Chiba was convicted of entering his ex-girlfriend's house and stabbing to death the girl's sister and a female friend of the girl with a butcher knife, seriously injuring a male friend of the sister and abducting the girl. Prosecutors said Chiba killed the victims because they were trying to separate him and his former girlfriend.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since Chiba pleaded no contest to the key facts presented by the prosecution, the severity of punishment was the main issue in the trial, which was handled by a team of three professional and 6 lay judges, at the Sendai District Court. In its November 2010 ruling, the court said that in view of the heinousness of his crimes, the fact that Chiba was a minor at the time did not constitute sufficient reason to avoid capital punishment. The decision was upheld in 2014 in an appellate trial handled solely by professional judges at the Sendai High Court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The district court trial lasted 11 days. 5 hearings were held and the judges spent two days deciding on the penalty. During the trial, Chiba's lawyers argued that he was mentally immature, that his crimes were not premeditated and that a doctor's record of his examination pointed to the possibility that he could be rehabilitated. A legitimate question is whether the judges had enough time to examine the family environment of the accused and whatever reflection he had over his crimes. It must be asked whether the judges had fully considered and discussed the prospect of his rectification, in view of the Juvenile Law's main principle of helping problem youths achieve rehabilitation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Chiba's family was fatherless. Under the Juvenile Law, a family court can send a minor to prosecutors if its judges deem such a move is appropriate. But the law also says that in examining the behavior of a minor and his or her personal history and family environment, a family court should use the expertise of medicine, psychology, pedagogy and other branches of learning. Regarding a crime committed by a minor who is under the age of 18, a court cannot hand down a death sentence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Supreme Court and the Justice Ministry should consider whether lay judge trials, whose durations tend to be short, are suitable for handling serious crimes committed by minors. They also should think about whether it is appropriate to have lay judges participate in trials that may result in giving the death penalty because experience shows that handing down such a sentence puts an enormous psychological burden on lay judges.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1983, the Supreme Court adopted a criterion comprising nine factors for sentencing someone to death, which said in a nutshell that a court can hand down the death penalty only when it is unavoidable in view of the gravity of the crimes of the accused. Under this criterion, the age of defendants when they commit their crimes was considered a key factor in trials involving minors. But this trend changed when the Supreme Court in 2006 remanded the case involving the 1999 murder in Hikari, Yamaguchi Prefecture, of a 23-year-old woman and her baby daughter by a boy - who had just turned 18 - to the Hiroshima High Court. The Supreme Court upheld the death penalty for him in 2012.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The judges in the Sendai trial are likely to have followed the trend set by the top court's handling of the Hikari case. In supporting the lower court rulings, the Supreme Court's First Petty Bench in a 5-0 ruling pointed out that in view of the serious nature of the crimes - that 2 people were murdered out of the accused's selfish motive - his criminal responsibility was extremely heavy even though he was a minor when he committed the murders and had no prior record.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The tendency to impose tougher punishment on crimes committed by minors appears to have set in. Through revisions of the Juvenile Law, the minimum age at which minors can face criminal punishment has been lowered from 16 years of age to 14 and the upper limit for a fixed prison term was raised from 15 years to 20. The Supreme Court and the Justice Ministry should rouse public discussions on whether imposing stricter punishment, including hanging, on minors will really contribute to reducing crimes by providing concrete data as well as information on how other countries cope with crimes by minors.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Editorial, The Japan Times, June 24, 2016<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Related articles:</b><br /><ul><li><a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/2016/06/japan-bar-association-chief-criticizes.html#ixzz4ClYR4bJE" target="_blank">Japan: Bar association chief criticizes naming of man sentenced to death</a>, June 20, 2016</li><li><a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/search/label/Japan#ixzz4ClYnWSla" target="_blank">Japan: Death penalty to stand for man over 2010 murder as minor</a>, June 17, 2016</li></ul></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

Asia Japan Juvenile offenders Lay judges Japan: Capital punishment for a minor

Death chamber at Tokyo Detention Center The Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the death sentence given in a lay judge trial to a...

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Japan: Death penalty to stand for man over 2010 murder as minor

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi70877LtEnQ2VgCZdKIs6SJB6C9cDUdkss3vIG-T7zioDYmoW9lkTPhxulHfuy16nXFeZ6D-XUDtxL2T2n-MnrZq2Wvh-eh8hItPK4qqoWVWVa7K2gAcfgkESjVTDDos-qmaPejPuY2dQ/s1600/japan+tokyo+death+chamber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Execution chamber at Tokyo Detention Center" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi70877LtEnQ2VgCZdKIs6SJB6C9cDUdkss3vIG-T7zioDYmoW9lkTPhxulHfuy16nXFeZ6D-XUDtxL2T2n-MnrZq2Wvh-eh8hItPK4qqoWVWVa7K2gAcfgkESjVTDDos-qmaPejPuY2dQ/s400/japan+tokyo+death+chamber.jpg" title="Execution chamber at Tokyo Detention Center" width="333" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Execution chamber at Tokyo Detention Center</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">A death sentence given to a man convicted of murdering 2 women and seriously injuring another man in 2010 when he was 18 is set to be finalized after the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld lower court rulings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The case of Yutaro Chiba, now 24, marks the 1st time capital punishment has been given to a minor under Japan's lay judge trial system that began in 2009.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In handing down the ruling, the top court's first petty bench said the defendant committed the crime based on a "very selfish motive" as he was determined to kill anyone who sabotaged his plan to run away with his former girlfriend.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to rulings by the Sendai district and high courts, Chiba was guilty of stabbing to death his former girlfriend's older sister Misa Nambu, 20, and her 18-year-old friend Mikako Omori, and seriously injuring a man who was with them at the time of the crime on Feb. 10 in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Even if his age (as a minor) and having no criminal record is taken into account . . . his criminal responsibility is grave," the Supreme Court said, indicating that the death penalty cannot be avoided in line with the top court standards set in 1983 in the case of Norio Nagayama.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Chiba is the 7th person whose death penalty has effectively been finalized for a crime committed by a minor since the so-called Nagayama standard which, in applying capital punishment, took into account factors such as the number of victims, brutality and social impact of the crimes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nagayama was a death row inmate who was hanged in 1997 for killing 4 people when he was 19.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On Thursday, all 5 justices on the bench, presided by Justice Naoto Otani, unanimously rejected the appeal against Chiba's death sentence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In terms of murders of 2 people for a person under 20 at the time of the crimes, Chiba will be the 2nd to be sentenced to death, following a man convicted of murdering a woman and her baby girl in Hikari, Yamaguchi Prefecture, when he was 18.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Outside court, Chiba's chief lawyer, Hiroyuki Kusaba, criticized the ruling as being unacceptable.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The court 'does not at all take into consideration how the defendant's environment affected his character, and also does not give any explanation about this," Kusaba said, referring to his client's difficult childhood.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to court testimonies by Chiba, his mother, and others, Chiba was raised by his mother after his parents divorced when he was 5. His mother, who repeatedly divorced and remarried, suffered violence from her boyfriend and later became addicted to alcohol. He was then raised by his grandmother's side.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As demanded by prosecutors, a panel of three professional and 6 citizen judges gave the death penalty to Chiba at the district court in November 2010.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The court said it cannot just take into account his age when he committed the crime, given the brutality of the crime and the impact in terms of number of victims.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Sendai High Court upheld the lower court's decision.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Chiba's lawyers had sought leniency for their client to avoid the death penalty, arguing he was "immature" at the time and that his crime was "not premeditated."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: The Japan Times, June 16, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

Japan Juvenile offenders Lay judges Japan: Death penalty to stand for man over 2010 murder as minor

Execution chamber at Tokyo Detention Center A death sentence given to a man convicted of murdering 2 women and seriously injuring another ma...

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