HARD
JUSTICE
The
Japan Times: Thursday, Oct. 3, 2002
(C) All rights reserved
Murder
Victim's Families not always appeased by the death
penalty.
By KAHO
SHIMIZU
Staff
writer
First
of two parts
Masaharu Harada was stunned when he found out that the man
who murdered his younger brother had been executed on Dec.
27 in Nagoya.
He wondered why authorities felt they had to kill such a
remorseful man.
Toshihiko Hasegawa was one of two convicts hanged in
December. He was convicted of killing Harada's brother and
two other people in a murder-for-insurance scheme between
1979 and 1983. His death sentence was finalized in 1993.
Harada had petitioned the Justice Ministry on Hasegawa's
behalf to stay his execution. He believed letting Hasegawa
live so he could express remorse was the only way for him
to atone for his crime.
Despite the repeated entreaties, the ministry did not
hesitate to single Hasegawa out for execution from dozens
of death-row inmates nationwide.
At the end of December, there were 56 people on death row,
according to the Justice Ministry.
The ministry did not explain why Hasegawa was chosen or why
executions were carried out on that day, stating it is not
permitted to discuss individual cases.
The ministry instead cited public opinion in support of the
death penalty to justify its actions.
The December hangings raised questions about the rationale
behind executions, including whether putting perpetrators
to death really brings closure or satisfaction to the
victims' relatives, or whether public opinion should be
cited to justify capital punishment.
"The execution didn't help (ease the pain of) our family,"
Harada said.
When he initially learned of Hasegawa's arrest, he wanted
his brother's killer to be put to death.
But having received more than 100 letters of repentance
from the prisoner, Harada eventually changed his mind.
"I got Hasegawa's first letter from prison immediately
after the first trial session in 1984," he recalled.
Although Harada did not reply for a long time, Hasegawa
kept writing, reiterating his remorse and sometimes
enclosing pictures he had drawn in prison, including a
self-portrait.
"Every letter was filled with words of apology and hope for
the family's best," Harada explained.
After finally replying in 1993, Harada visited his
brother's killer in prison later that year.
"Many years had passed and I was calm enough to face
everything (about the murder) by then," he said, adding
that it is impossible to relate how grateful Hasegawa
looked upon receiving this visit.
During their 20-minute meeting, Hasegawa directly
apologized for his actions.
Harada said, however, that although he had thought long and
hard about what he would say at that moment, he found
himself at a loss for words when it finally arrived.
They skirted the actual murder itself, talking instead
about the well-being of Harada's family and about
Hasegawa's life in prison.
Hasegawa exhausted the appeals process and his death
sentence was finalized soon afterward, however, and
tightened restrictions on communication between death-row
inmates and the outside world limited Harada's contact with
him.
After pressuring prison officials, Harada was granted three
more meetings with Hasegawa before these visits were
eventually terminated in 1995.
"The prison officials rejected my repeated requests, saying
I could not see him because they wanted to keep Hasegawa
mentally stable," Harada said.
Six years later, Harada attended Hasegawa's wake.
Harada feels that despite having met Hasegawa four times,
they never had time to address the murder head-on as he
would have liked.
He said the execution left him feeling empty.
"Attempts to justify capital punishment by citing the
feelings of the victims' families do not sit well with me,"
he said.
The
flip-side of the coin
Perhaps
few people who have been victimized by crime would agree
with Harada, however.
Hiroshi Motomura, whose wife and 11-month-old daughter were
strangled in their Yamaguchi Prefecture home by a teenager
who tried to rape the wife in 1999, said Hasegawa's
execution was unavoidable.
"No matter how remorseful the convict seems, the condemned
should be punished in accordance with the sentence meted
out," Motomura said.
The death sentence should not be altered by requests from
victims' families, he added.
Although prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for the
youth who at age 18 killed Motomura's family, he was
sentenced to life in prison by the Yamaguchi District
Court.
Motomura felt let down by this ruling.
The sentence was upheld in March by the Hiroshima High
Court, which said the killer had repented and could be
rehabilitated.
The case is now before the Supreme Court, where prosecutors
are again demanding the death penalty. The defendant's name
has been withheld because he was a minor at the time of the
crime.
During the trial, the killer's upbringing in a tough
environment and remorse over the killings took center
stage, according to Motomura.
Motomura believes, however, that arguing over something no
one can be sure of is pointless. He believes court rulings
should be dictated solely by the Criminal Code.
When convicts express remorse, it is impossible to gauge if
they are sincere, he said, adding no one really knows if it
is possible to rehabilitate a criminal.
According to the Justice Ministry, more than 36 percent of
people who commit crimes became repeat offenders in 2001.
"All I can tell you is that the person who killed my wife
and daughter wrote to his friend saying that he won" after
the district court rejected prosecutors' demands for the
death penalty and sentenced him to life, Motomura said.
Opponents of capital punishment want the public's views
examined more carefully.
Although the Justice Ministry cites a public support rate
of 79.3 percent for the death penalty, based on its latest
poll, as a principal reason for maintaining capital
punishment, many experts say opinion polls should not be
used to justify the practice.
They argue that surveys can contain leading questions and
respondents may lack adequate information about the death
penalty.
In the latest survey conducted by the government, in 1999,
the question and response options were:
Which of the following opinions do you agree with?
I think the death penalty should be abolished under all
circumstances.
I think the death penalty is necessary in some cases.
I cannot decide which to choose.
"When respondents are not sure of their stance toward the
'judicial killing system,' it is natural for them to go for
the moderate answer -- the second one," said lawyer
Mitsuhiro Wada, a member of Amnesty International Japan,
the Tokyo branch of the international human rights group.
No matter what the crime was, executions violate basic
human rights, he said, and by killing murderers, the state
is merely replicating their actions.
Some experts also say opinion poll results reflect the
public's general lack of information regarding the death
penalty.
"People have little access to information about the capital
punishment system in Japan," Wada said, noting there is
little public debate on the issue.
The Justice Ministry does not announce its execution plans,
and merely discloses how many hangings took place after the
fact.
The government doesn't even disclose the names of the
executed, leaving nongovernmental organizations that oppose
the death penalty to do so after they have conducted their
own investigations.
"The government should not use the results of public
opinion polls to defend the death penalty," Wada said,
adding that authorities should first disclose all
information necessary to raise public awareness.
The government should only cite public opinion to defend
its position after extensive public debate on the issue has
taken place, Wada argued.
Information
clampdown
Commenting
on the ministry's secretive policy, Justice Minister Mayumi
Moriyama told a news conference on Dec. 28, "It is the
ministry's practice since 1998, and I think that is the
best we can do at present.
"Generally speaking, the ministry goes over all sorts of
relevant documents and considers various angles before
deciding whether it is appropriate to execute certain
convicts," she said, adding the justice minister then gives
the final go-ahead.
Death penalty foes suspect the Justice Ministry chooses who
dies at random.
Yuji Ogawara, a Tokyo-based lawyer who has been studying
the issue for nearly 15 years, said, "Japan is a democratic
country, which means that we, the nation, must know what
the government is doing.
"It's not that hangings are carried out by someone in some
place not connected with our daily lives. Every one of us
in effect gives tacit approval."
Legislative
maneuvers
Ogawara
hopes public debate will be triggered by a group of 122
Diet members calling for abolition of the death penalty.
The group is led by Shizuka Kamei, former policy chief of
the Liberal Democratic Party. These lawmakers are currently
preparing a bill that would put an end to capital
punishment in the near future.
Although he is a firm foe of the death penalty, Ogawara
welcomes arguments by the proponents, believing any
argument will help provoke further debate.
Ogawara believes raising public awareness is the only way
to bring problems related to capital punishment to the
surface. Harada and Motomura both share this view.
Harada has been lecturing across the country about the
death penalty ever since he realized he did not want his
brother's killer to hang.
"I feel that every audience I face knows nothing about the
death penalty," Harada said.
His accounts of his experiences with Hasegawa fuel debate
among those present, he said.
Motomura, who is convinced that the man who killed his
family deserves to die, agrees people should learn more
about Japan's capital punishment system. To this end, he
believes the government should disclose death-row convicts'
last words.
He believes this would help the public gain greater
awareness of the consequences of crime for criminals as
well as their victims.
"We must at least make society aware of the judicial
killing system" in order to search for ways to prevent
future crime, Motomura said.
The
Japan Times: Thursday, Oct. 3, 2002
(C) All rights reserved