Japan MPs moot halt to executions

[[R_H]]

BBC

A cross-party group of Japanese legislators has said it has drafted a bill proposing a four-year moratorium on the death penalty.

The bill, a step towards abolition, will shortly be submitted to parliament and introduces life imprisonment without parole as a substitute.

Japan and the United States are the only industrial democracies to maintain capital punishment.

But the initiative is likely to meet stiff opposition.


Secret executions

Critics have long described Japan's use of the death penalty as unworthy of a liberal democracy. As much as the principle of it, the way the death penalty is administered has been condemned both domestically and abroad: death row inmates are executed at short notice, to deter appeals.

They are put to death by hanging, generally on a Friday and during parliamentary recess to avoid media exposure or public opposition.

At the trial stage, defendants may not have easy access to a lawyer, and the prosecutorial system tends to value confessions above evidence.

Abolitionist parliamentarians appear to think the time is right for reform.

But the current Justice Minister, Kunio Hatoyama, is a vocal supporter of capital punishment. He has signed off six executions since taking office last September.

And surveys suggest a majority of Japanese want to retain the death penalty for particularly heinous crimes.

The country's violent crime rate remains low by global standards, but has risen considerably since the mid-1990s.

[Buddha]

In a situation like this you are steering the issue of the death penalty and into the problem of prison overcrowding. At least death row inmates don't put the kind of strain on the pockets of the people as the people serving life sentences.

[montypython]

In a situation like this you are steering the issue of the death penalty and into the problem of prison overcrowding. At least death row inmates don't put the kind of strain on the pockets of the people as the people serving life sentences.

That's not taking into account all the various legal costs in processing appeals and court decisions, upon other things.

[Sea Skimmer]

In a situation like this you are steering the issue of the death penalty and into the problem of prison overcrowding. At least death row inmates don't put the kind of strain on the pockets of the people as the people serving life sentences.

Thats 100% nonsense. Compared to similar 1st degree murder trials and appeals processes in which the death penalty wasn’t on the table, death penalty cases can cost anything from a half million to as much as 20 million dollars more. Theses costs in total add up to billions of dollars per year. I support the death penalty, but economics are totally against it the way it’s currently implemented, which is quite unsatisfactory. Course the whole US prison system desperately needs more funding (some state prisons are at 200% capacity) and a overhaul in the very way it works from the ground up, but that sure not going to happen.

[Andrew J.]

In a situation like this you are steering the issue of the death penalty and into the problem of prison overcrowding. At least death row inmates don't put the kind of strain on the pockets of the people as the people serving life sentences.

Do you really think abolishing the death penalty will seriously affect the prison population? I don't believe there have even been a thousand executions in Japan since the end of WWII.

[Morilore]

Please note that Japan and America are not the same country, and the issues surrounding the death penalty in Japan are not the same issues as in America. Apparently, death penalty procedures in Japan are shrouded in secrecy, such that even the inmate doesn't know he's going to be executed until a few hours before, and lawyers and families until after the fact.