New justice minister backs death penalty

Thursday 25th September, 07:30 AM JST

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realist at 01:37 PM JST - 25th September

So, the jackboot dictatorship of Aso and the LDP continues. Right from the start. tough words aimed at their support base among the uneducated farmers, who are usually right wing fascists. Yes, this is playing to the gallery all right. Never mind the morality of murdering people in the name of "the law." Japan really is a backward country in so many ways.
Notginger at 03:59 PM JST - 25th September

Ichya - the court gives the death verdict, but the secretary of state decides the time. By what criteria does he decide the time? What criteria suddenly renders state sanctioned murder necessary? If he sees a black cat on the same days as three magpies fly past his office window? How does he decide when?
Statistician at 04:14 PM JST - 25th September

@realist

Japan really is a backward country in so many ways

It's true. Japan is a backward country in many ways.
USARonin at 04:25 PM JST - 25th September

I agree with the judge.

Whoever makes the hemp over here, should really start crankin' it out.
greencardfan at 06:40 PM JST - 25th September

So,fds, it's wrong for someone to take someone else's life but it's OK for the government to take the offender's. Where's the logic here? This is why the death penalty is NEVER justifiable. And, of course, the chance that an innocent person might be put to death. If it was YOUR family member accused of a crime and sentenced to death, would you STILL be OK with it? I read somewhere that, in the US, after a prisoner is executed a post-mortem is performed due to the death, of course, not being a natural one. The coroner's verdict? Homicide.
Nippon5 at 07:05 PM JST - 25th September

Greencardfan,

All death is homicide, unless you truely die from your body failing due to old age. This includes cancer, aids, automobile deaths, etc etc... Homicide is a legal term and it isnt part of the Coroners report.

If a man rapes and tortures a woman for years, sends pictures of it to the family as he does it, brags that he did it, you still think its ok to keep him comfortable in a solitaire confinment cell at your 40k a year? cause if you like that the US will accept your payment for each one you want to save from the death sentence, I will guess Japan would too.. SO you pick up the bill and no one gets killed... Or we can just keep em at your house???? which one do you like for an option?
Nippon5 at 07:07 PM JST - 25th September

I meant to say Homocide isnt the cause used for the coroner on a death sentence its not in his report.. Its a legal term used to identify someone killed in a murder, not as a form of punishment by the state..
USARonin at 07:17 PM JST - 25th September

Nippon, I humbly disagree with you over the definition "homicide".

Homicide is death at the hands or by means of another. All murders are homicides, but not all homicides are murder. It is not about dying of old age.

I have no problem with the death penalty if judiciously applied.

"Punishment" can be a part of justice with which I believe you may agree.

All the arguments about whether or not the death penalty deters crimes are immaterial.

USAR
Nippon5 at 08:22 PM JST - 25th September

From websters.....

1 : a person who kills another 2 : a killing of one human being by another

My point was that homicide isnt from old age, its from causes from another source, ie automobile accident, Murder, cancer caused by a companies products, chemical attacks, world trade center people who died from chemicals in the air after the towers fell, etc etc.

The coroner doesnt put Homicide on the death certificate when the perp is punished by a death sentence..

I dont care if they have the death penalty or not, but I do think you have to consider the cost involved with keeping a person alive for 40-50 years in prison.

Howard Stern said he was going to run in NY city. His main campaign promise was to kill all the death road inmates and use them for pot hole filler... He was way ahead in the polls, he cancelled his campaign and stopped running for office.

Seems most people wouldnt like to pay for anothers crime for 40-50 years....
BBLeo at 09:27 PM JST - 25th September

Would this Justice Minister Eisuke Mori be any good to clean up corruptions and also hang them all? I wonder how he sleep at night? On one side he is right, but on the other side perhaps he should think, to keep all these killers in jail for the rest of their ticking hours. Let them suffer slowly.'THERE'S THE RUB: 'PROUD MINISTERIAL HEAD HUNTER.'
Patrick Smash at 11:15 PM JST - 25th September

Nippon 5. You're incorrect, but depending on the state. Some states do rule that execution is death by homicide as in one man killed another. Others do not.

I've said this so many times, but just once more. Japan had a conviction rate of 99.97% until recently. Confessions were frequently extracted under torture, and still are. Interrogations are carried out in secret, and are not recorded. Japan has refused to ban the use of what they term "mild torture". Legal assistance is negligible. There is no real trial. Once the confession has been forced, the defendant faces a kangaroo court, where 3 judges will decide his fate. Many of these have never once used the word NOT in front of the world GUILTY. A man spent 34 years on Death Row here before his conviction was finally overturned and he was released.

The system is shoddy, and many convictions are extremely unsafe. I think this is Japan's dark side and it disgusts me, and should disgust any normal, reasonable human being. To agree with the Death Sentence here you have to agree with the killing of innocent people, because the system makes this inevitable. If you do not support the killing of innocent people you cannot support Japan's use of the deathsentence. It's really very, very basic to anyone who knows anything about the system. Unfortunately the Japanese are kept deliberately ignorant of how the death penalty is carried out, and that's why support for it remains high.

I could just about agree with a death sentence in Sweden or Denmark, or in some of the world's other more enlightened areas, but not here. Because to support it here means you must support murdering innocent people, and most of us don't like that too much.
soldave at 09:44 AM JST - 26th September

Have no objections to the death penalty for murder, when it's a clear-cut case and with the murderer showing no signs of remorse. Of course, it would depend on the situation.
akuma1985 at 04:28 PM JST - 26th September

personnally i think that life sentence are worst than death sentence. if you kill someone he is death it's over and the assassined person will not come back. but just think about a life emprisonement with out appeal. maybe it will during for 30,40,50 or more years along. like that every murderer can have a really long and horrible life and they have time to think about their act.
Nessie at 05:40 PM JST - 26th September

Why is this news?
greencardfan at 06:44 PM JST - 26th September

Thanks for the comments. Soldave, those "clear cut cases" at the time of sentencing can't, as shown by miscarriages of justice, be clear cut 100% of the time. Thus, LWOP must be the viable option. Nippon5, any comment on your feelings if it were your close family member sentenced to death? Hear, hear to Patrick Smash.