UNMASKING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT / Death-row inmate’s long detention a concern
Written by Writer on Monday, October 13th, 2008
UNMASKING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT / Death-row inmate’s long detention a concern
The Yomiuri Shimbun
This is the fifth installment in a series of articles focusing on capital punishment.
Under the lay judge system starting in May, lay judges chosen from among the public will participate in decision-making processes that could result in death sentences.
In the small hours of Sept. 3, 2003, Tsuneki Tomiyama, 86, a death-row convict at Tokyo Detention House, was declared dead in the facility’s intensive care unit. The cause of death was given as chronic renal failure.
Tomiyama had continued to protest his innocence, filing two retrial petitions, both of which were turned down.
Prior to his death, he had been held in detention for more than 27 years following the finalization of his sentence. For the last two years of his life Tomiyama suffered from various ailments, including high blood pressure and arterial hardening.
In 1987, another condemned inmate, Sadamichi Hirasawa, died in prison at the age of 95. He had been convicted in a case involving the defunct Teikoku Bank in which 12 people were poisoned to death in 1948.
Seven condemned criminals have died from natural causes in prison. Of the seven, four were aged 70 or older and had been detained for more than 10 years before their deaths.
On Dec. 25, 2006, another convict at the same detention facility, Yoshio Fujinami, 75, who was unable to walk due to rheumatism, was hanged by the state–13 years after his death penalty had been finalized.
After being taken to the execution chamber in a wheelchair, Fujinami stood up with the aid of two prison officers and proceeded to the trapdoor at the center of the execution chamber, according to prison sources.
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Fear of death
“I never get older…the lapse of time, the ceaselessness.”
Iwao Hakamada, 72, an inmate at Tokyo Detention House who has protested his innocence ever since his first trial, reportedly repeats such phrases every time his sister, Hideko, 75, visits him at the detention house. Hakamada began making his desperate remarks soon after his death sentence was finalized by the Supreme Court in 1980.
He was convicted in 1968 of murdering an executive of a miso factory, his wife and their daughter and son in Shizuoka Prefecture in 1966.
After his death sentence was finalized, Hakamada lodged his first appeal for a retrial in 1981.
The Japan Federation of Bar Associations took up Hakamada’s case, saying there was a “high possibility” the prisoner had been falsely accused.
This initial appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court in March this year and his second appeal currently is under examination. Hakamada has been held in detention for two months short of 28 years, the fourth-longest period among the nation’s 103 death-row prisoners.
“My brother has become mentally deranged due to his fear of execution,” Hideko said.
In June, the Tokyo Family Court turned down an appeal to appoint a legal guardian for Hakamada, but based on testimonies given by external doctors, the court has admitted he has been suffering from a condition known as prison reaction.
There currently are nine condemned prisoners who have been in detention for 20 years or more. The longest-serving inmate has been held for 37 years and 10 months.
As to reasons why detention periods are often prolonged in such cases, prison administration sources have cited differences in the way various justice ministers handle the death sentence and the practice of not executing people under sentence of death while they seek a retrial or amnesty.
Legally, petitions for retrial or amnesty are not valid grounds for suspending a prisoner’s execution.
In reality however, particularly in the case of petitions for retrial, prison authorities tend to delay executions for fear of killing a falsely charged individual, according to a high-ranking official of the Justice Ministry.
The official said: “Some death-row inmates become physically ill or suffer from mental disorders while being detained over a long period. In some cases, inmates die from illness or old age before they can go to the gallows.”
Currently, 50 prisoners are waiting to hear the outcome of their retrial petitions.
“The longer it takes to screen a retrial petition, the longer it takes for an execution to be carried out,” an appeal lawyer said.
“Though there are many negative effects relating to long-term detention, these are still preferable to the death penalty,” the lawyer added.
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Ministry open to criticism
In contrast to the tendency to prolong periods of detention, there recently have been several cases in which executions have been carried out swiftly.
For instance, Mineteru Yamamoto, 68, was hanged at Osaka Detention House on Sept. 11. This was a relatively quick turnaround given that his first trial for murder and robbery was about two years and eight months earlier.
In light of the looming introduction of the lay-judge system, the Osaka District Court was reportedly keen intent to expedite proceedings in the Yamamoto case, handing down a ruling only two months after the start of the trial. Further, the accused voluntarily withdrew an appeal against the death sentence.
“There’s no denying that appeals for retrial and amnesty have been used to delay the administering of the death penalty,” a former bureau chief of the Justice Ministry said.
“But given that retrial and amnesty appeals are part of the country’s legal system, it’s inevitable that death-row convicts use these processes. This prolongs detention time–a situation that runs counter to the principle of executing the condemned within an appropriate time frame,” he added.
“The Justice Ministry, however, also must bear some responsibility for the current situation,” the former bureau chief said.
