Government Resumes Death Penalty

Minister of Justice, Keisuke Suzuki, announced that the ministry executed death penalty on Takahiro Shiraishi who was sentenced death penalty in the case of robbery and murder with rape on nine victims. It marked the first example of execution for Shigeru Ishiba Cabinet. Although execution has been a controversial issue, since Iwao Hakamada, who had been in the death row for decades, was proved to be innocent in a murder case, Ishiba government showed willingness to maintain death penalty as the supreme penalty in Japan.

According to the sentence of the court, Shiraishi invited people who indicated through social networking service their wishes to die and killed them in his room in Zama City, Kanagawa, between August and October 2017. He raped eight women and choked each of them to the death and cut and abandoned their bodies. One man was also killed by Shiraishi. Those nine victims were between the age of fifteen and twenty-six.

 

Tokyo District Court sentenced death penalty to Shiraishi in December 2020. Shiraishi admitted the criminal charge on him. Although his lawyers tried to appeal to the higher court, Shiraishi dismissed it and death penalty on him was determined.

 

Suzuki signed his order to execute Shiraishi four days before the execution. “He killed nine people with selfish reason to fulfill his own desire for sex and money. The case gave a significant shock and concern to the Japanese society. I accumulated extremely serious considerations on the decision,” said Suzuki in his press conference on the day of execution.

 

The execution in Japan was the first case in these two years and eleven months. The last case was on Tomohiro Kato who had made indiscriminate murder on seven people by driving a truck at Akihabara, Tokyo, in 2008. Although death penalties had been executed mostly every year after 1993, the trend stopped in 2022 when then Minister of Justice, Yasuhiro Hanashi, made a gaffe on his position. “This is an inconspicuous job which is paid attention only when I signed for execution in the morning of the day and reported in the news at noon,” Hanashi said and received broad criticisms.

 

In October 2024, Iwao Hakamada was proved innocent in the retrial on him. While Hakamada was detained with fear of death penalty, he suffered from heavy metal illness, inviting discussion over death penalty from the perspectives of humanity. There is growing opinion for abolishing death penalty, because the penalty is not correctable if the court decision was wrong.

 

Suzuki insisted that abolishing death penalty would not be appropriate, because death penalty must be inevitable for extremely malign crimes. “Execution of a court decision must be done in a state with rule of law,” said Suzuki. On the other hand, there is an argument that death penalty does not work as a deterrence against malicious crime. Execution on Shiraishi may evoke further discussion on maintenance of death penalty in Japan.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dilemma between Alliance and Constitution

  In the new year ministerial online meeting, Japan and United States resolved to work together to deal with various challenges by China. In the Joint Statement of the Security Consultative Committee, or “2+2,” the ministers of both government, US Secretaries of State and Defense and Japanese Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense, expressed their concerns on Beijing’s efforts, which were recognized as undermining the rule-based order in Indo-Pacific region and the world. On possible countermeasures, however, there still is a possibility of constitutional dispute in Japan over the principle of exclusively defensive security policy. The ministers referred to their concern about China’s activities in the East and the West China Sea. They reaffirmed to apply Article V of US-Japan Treaty of mutual Cooperation and Security to the Senkaku Islands, and strongly objected to China’s unlawful maritime claims, militarization and coercive activities in the South China Sea. They did not forge...
Read more

Oral Argument against Landfill

Governor of Okinawa Denny Tamaki made an unusual appearance to the court on Monday to submit his opinion on the building of new base for United States Force in Henoko, Nago city. “Execution by proxy of the national government, which violates the independency of Okinawa, cannot be accepted,” said Tamaki in the first oral argument at Naha Branch of Fukuoka High Court on the trial over the request of national government to change the design of new base. Accepting demand from Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, the court closed the trial on the day one.   The national government submitted in 2020 a change of plan for the construction of new base, which was to reinforce the soil of sea base. The government of Okinawa rejected the plan and Tokyo ordered Okinawa accepting it, but Okinawa did not obey, and then Tokyo filed a lawsuit. The Supreme Court decided in September that the order of national government was lawful. Seeing that Okinawa did not approve the plan by ...
Read more

New But Traditional Capitalism

According to the top leader of Japan, the country is going to lead the world with a concept of “new capitalism.” In his annual policy speech to the National Diet on Monday, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida required the people to join his challenge for economic and social change, to which he believed the world to be stepping forward. However, his challenge looks to be relatively leaning on traditional growth-oriented policies, lacking strong momentum for wealth distribution to every corner of Japanese society.      Kishida tried to sell his new capitalism as the key to economic revitalization. He listed various hazards the world was encountering; wider gap and poverty brought by dependence on market economy without fair distribution, shortage of mid- or long-term investment caused by putting priority on efficiency of competitive market, losing sustainability, arial gap between the urban and the rural, serious climate change with pressure on the nature, and crisis of healthy de...
Read more