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No condemned convicts have been sent to Japan's gallows for over one year, this despite the 120 persons currently on death row -- the highest figure in recent history.
As reported in the Sankei Shimbun (Aug 28), Justice Minister Satsuki Eda, at a July 29 press conference, told reporters, "We're right in the midst of studying what is a problematic situation. We can't proceed with executions while we're divided over the issue."
On July 27, members of the media were given their first view of the execution facilities at Tokyo's Kosuge Prison. The facilities appear well maintained and orderly. One bit of information not previously known is that smoking -- even the legendary "final puff" offered to the condemned before mounting the gallows -- is prohibited.
Japan operates seven facilities where executions are carried out. In the past, three visits had been arranged for a working group of Diet members, but except for the Kosuge gallows in Tokyo, the others have yet to be shown to the media.
The moves toward greater openness are credited to former Justice Minister Keiko Chiba's attending the most recent execution, on July 28, 2010.
Although the Criminal Code stipulates that executions are to be carried out within six months from the time all legal avenues have been exhausted, they cannot proceed until the Minister of Justice signs off.
Some criticisms have been raised that the current minister is "remiss in his duties" for what amounts to a de facto halt of executions.
The ministry explained to the Sankei that because there have been three turnovers over the past year, each successive justice minister has not had sufficient time to "gird his loins to debate the death penalty."
Since the last execution was carried out 13 months ago, 16 new death sentences have been handed down by courts. Of these, eight cases involved rulings in which citizen jurors took part. In another two capital murder trials, the jurors declined to impose the death penalty.
According to an earlier article in the same newspaper, death row convicts in Japan follow a daily routine of arising at 7 a.m., and sleeping at 9 p.m. They are permitted to earn income by working at jobs outsourced by private companies. In their solitary cells they wear street clothes, not prison garb, and may use their income to purchase newspapers, magazines and books.
They are also permitted to purchase items from contracted vendors, such as obento (boxed meals), grapes, canned crab meat or eel, and confections. Visits, as a general rule, are restricted to family members and their attorney only.
When an execution is finalized, the current practice is to inform the convict on the morning of the same day.
"Up to 1975, we had notified them one day before," says a source in the ministry's Bureau of Corrections. "But this resulted in several suicides. So from 1975, it became the same day."
According to the wishes of the condemned, he -- no female has been executed since 1965 -- may spend a short period together with the prison chaplain, and receive a final benediction. He is also offered a final Japanese-style confection or piece of fruit, but smoking is prohibited. Likewise for alcohol.
A chamber next to the gallows is equipped with a Buddhist altar, which quickly converts to a "Kamidana" (Shinto altar) or Christian altar with a crucifix, by sliding a panel. ("There may be cases where more than one execution is carried out on the same day," it was explained.)
The last thing the condemned's eyes see is a green curtain. His eyes are covered with medical gauze and the curtain drawn open for observers.
The trap is released by three prison staff who simultaneously press three buttons, only one of which springs the trap. About five minutes later, the attending physician confirms that death has occurred and the body is removed. The floor has a drain directly beneath the gallows.
The three prison staff who press the buttons each receive a special stipend of 20,000 yen. ("It's an unwritten rule that they never discuss this particular task with others," the reporter was told.)
© Japan Today
31 Comments
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papigiulio
so it sounds a bit macaber but what do they need a drain for below the body if they are using poison for like in the states or are these executions bloody?
lucabrasi
@Papigiulio
Not easy to control your bodily functions with a noose round your neck and a trapdoor beneath your feet :(
cleo
What??
Kevin Lee Brooke
The number should be 10 times that high based upon all the news reports of parents murdering their children - which should be an AUTOMATIC death sentence. Hell, it's not even life in prison for that here. It's like what, 5 years to kill your kid?
The Munya Times
The prisons are full and overcrowded, cannot accommodate more convicts. They get no work, make no money, costs a lot to feed them. Solution? Kill them. It this what happening? I hope I'm wrong. But not sure.
Frungy
... so in other words these men are being held illegally? I mean their sentence was death, not life imprisonment. Either commute their sentences to life imprisonment or execute them, keeping their families waiting is just cruel.
nath
Why don't they wear prison garb?
Virtuoso
I'll give you a guess: Prison uniforms are laundered and recycled for the next inmate, and I suppose nobody wants to think that maybe the duds he is wearing belonged to someone who was hanged in them. (But I could be wrong on this.)
the_sheriff
And the problem is?
Virtuoso
I'll venture another guess: Audiences are generally disappointed by no-shows, and I suppose hangings are no different! Also, it said a doctor has to be present, so the warden has to get on the phone and tell him and whoever else is involved not to bother to come. It disrupts their "Wa."
Graham DeShazo
I have been up and down on the issue of captial punishment over the course of my life. I will not argue the right or wrongness of its existence. However, I think the process through which it is meeted out is flawed, and the actual execution proceedure constitutes what U.S. law would call "cruel and unusual" punishment. Yes, I know that the U.S. death penalty system is flawed as well. No, I am not going to debate it now.
As we know, confessions serve as the major tool in conviction in Japan. The problem (as the police and prosecutors know) is that given enough sleep deprivation and questioning (and maybe a playful slap or two) anybody will confess to anything just to get it to stop. No witnesses (they have their own issues but I digress..)? No DNA? No problem. He said he did it. He must have done it. Off to the Gallows.
Also, I know that quite a few people on Death Row are essentally barbarians whom nobody will shed a tear for (Asahara Shoko? Anybody really want to stick up for him?), but that does not mean that we have to kill them barbarically even though we might want to. Years of solitary never knowing if today is THE DAY...That sounds as if it was meant to inflict mental anguish to me.
As I said, there are some for whom Iwould gladly push a button, pull a lever, squeeze a trigger, but the justice system needs to be damn sure they are guilty using forensics etc. And we should make sure that in punishing monsters, we do not become monsters ourselves.
BlueWitch
@Kevin Lee Brooke
In the majority of cases, less than that. First time Child murderers usually get off with a suspended sentence and that happens when their lawyers add mental illness as part of the defense.
BlueWitch
I have always been against DEATH PENALTY. My mind will never change, period.
Why? Because If someone in my family was murdered, I wouldn't want that person to get away with it by having a quick death. NO!!! I want that person incarcerated for years and years and year..rotting inside a prison cell. No freedom, No fresh air, No interacting with the opposite sex, No enjoying what we enjoy here in society. That person belongs inside a cage. Death Penalty is TOO GOOD for them. But there will be many people that will disagree with me and that's ok. We all have the right to differ and have our own opinions.
Still, Japanese prisons are a joke. Too clean and too much protection among inmates. They should take note from third world prisons like Malaysia. There, inmates have rice and bread, sleep on the floor and have cockroaches for company. I don't want to sound inhumane but, a real prison should be a little like that. You know, so criminals can really think about what they did?
lucabrasi
@BlueWitch
Malaysia...where the murder rate is almost three times that of Japan. Maybe they ought to be taking note of the Japanese penal system....
BlueWitch
@lucabrasi
Are you kidding me? Take note from the CORRUPTED/ARCHAIC Japanese penal system? What do you want? Suspended sentences and beat-up confessions? No Thank you.
Jimny1216
You all should watch, if you have the opportunity, the National Geographic series on prisons. Wow solitairy (SP) confinement is no joke. I think a lot of them would rather be dead. So I think Blue Witch, you would appreciate that. Myself, I could care less either way. Believe it or not hanging, if done the proper way, actually breaks the person's neck when they hit the end of the rope. All the jerking and such is just nerves that have been severed from the brain. But if done improperly, it becomes a lynching where the person is just strangled to death by their own weight on the rope. Which way does Japan do it...anyone care to venture a guess?
nath
Jimny1216.
You are talking about the short-drop vs the long-drop.
Short-drop usually ends in strangulation, vs long drop breaks the neck or can even make the head separate from the body(see a famous Iraqi execution not too long ago).
Either way will results in loss of bodily fluids and other side-effects.
And I agree with you on prisons across the globe. But an important thing that many people forget is that they might end up in said prison system themselves. And it is easy.
Had a good friend that it happened to, he hit a guy outside a bar and did time for man-slaughter as the guy hit the curb the wrong way and died. No Intent, just the juices flowing.
And it can take less than that to do a stint. Traffic accident, etc, etc.
oginome
If you're gonna keep the death penalty Japan, at least apply it to those degenerates who did what they did to Junko Furuta. But no, they've been walking free for years and years. They were given new identities too, weren't they? What scum, and what a useless legal system that allowed that to happen.
nec123a
the death penalty is a sick option. It does nothing for us but satisfy old fashioned blood lust.
ebisen
nec123 - spot on but... If someone, out of boredom would rape and kill your wife, then do the same to your kids, wouldn't you feel a bit thirsty? Wouldn't you want that person legally killed in the most inhumane way possible?
If you answer is: No, my reply is: how do you know it? Hopefully you never experience such awful things, but unfortunately some people do.
Think a bit for the victim's families as well.
BlueWitch
@oginome
oh wow!! Junko Furuta..... That's a very old but latent case that still gives me the "willies"... It was very insane and macabre what they did to her and how the CORRUPTED/ARCHAIC japanese penal system gave these animals very light sentences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta
shame shame on this disgusting judiciary system... yuck!
BlueWitch
@nec123a
Exactly!! The Death penalty does nothing to lower the crime rate. It is NOT a crime deterrent. Put me in charge of these scumbags any day, while they are on solitary confinement. I'll make sure they get their dirty water and cockroaches down their throats.
I'll show you what I can do with a few gallons of water and a wooden table. (^_~)
oginome
One of her tormentors/killers tried the same tactics on someone else when he left prison
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/member/member.html?nn20040729a3.htm
How unbelievably pathetic. Those subhumans should have been put in solitary confinement for life.
Virtuoso
The article said the doctor confirms death about 5 minutes after the trap is sprung -- so it the answer should be pretty obvious. I read in a book that Japan "imported" the British long-drop system when it constructed its first gallows back in the early Meiji period. Before then the death penalty was decapitation by sword.
Tom DeMicke
For a civilized nation, Japan is a barbaric nation when it comes to the death penalty. Hanging? Really! Time for change!
TheQuestion
Revamp the system. If its become that much of a problem set up a dedicated courthouse for death row inmates to relieve congestion then start scheduling death dates.
Also, hanging is an art but those who still implement it fail to grasp that concept. You'd need a full time professional with medical training to do it right and frankly I haven't seen that level of commitment. If you're not going to do it right use some other means.
Novenachama
While the conditions of death row have slightly improved over the years, the amount of access provided to the Japanese is minimal. The prisoners still live in solitary confinement hidden from the community. They are executed without their relatives often learning about the execution after it has been carried out. A large percentage of Japanese believe that the current system should be retained in the future and this acceptable practice has been a daily part of life for many while others strongly feel that this cruel death penalty is" unworthy of a democracy."
warnerbro
The problem with the anti death penalty politicians in Japan is that they institute a one person moratorium and that's as far as it goes. It's true that the majority of Japanese support the death penalty. But sometimes when one is a leader, one must lead. Don't just simply ignore the warrants as they pile up on your desk. Use your position to teach the people what is wrong with the death penalty. The fact that something is popular does not make it right.
Michael Craig
What if electrocution replaced hanging in Japan like it did in America?
Elbuda Mexicano
Lots of sick sick no good messed up monsters on our streets that need to be locked up and as a one of Charley Daniels songs days Time em Up and let the gators just do the rest!!!