Today, the Shizuoka District Court ruled on the so-called “Hakamada Case,” declaring Iwao Hakamada to be not guilty in a retrial.
The case involves the murder of four family members in the early hours of June 30, 1966, at the home of the executive of a miso manufacturing and sales company in Shimizu City, Shizuoka Prefecture (at that time), where valuables were stolen and the residence was set on fire. Hakamada was arrested on August 18 of the same year and subsequently indicted.
Hakamada initially confessed due to prolonged forced interrogation, but later recanted his confession at trial and has since consistently maintained his innocence. However, on December 12, 1980, a death sentence was upheld. Following this, Hakamada’s case underwent two retrial applications, leading to the not guilty verdict handed down today.
The court recognized that there are “three fabrications” regarding evidence that suggest Hakamada was the perpetrator of the crime. Specifically, a) The prosecutor’s record in which Hakamada confessed to the crime, b) The so-called “five items of clothing,” which were “discovered” approximately one year and two months after the incident in a miso tank, and confirmed in the ruling as being the clothing worn during the crime, and c) Three pieces of evidence claimed to be remnants of the navy blue pants among the five items of clothing. The court determined that all of these were fabricated by the investigative authorities. Consequently, based on other evidence, which excluded these three pieces of evidence, the court ruled Hakamada not guilty, a decision that our organization highly values.
Hakamada has borne the stigma of being the perpetrator for an astonishing 58 years since his arrest. Arrested at the age of 30, he is now 88 years old. Hakamada was released on March 27, 2014, when the Shizuoka District Court decided to commence a retrial and suspend the death penalty and its execution. From the time of his arrest to this decision, Hakamada endured a total of 47 years and 7 months of detention, 33 of which were spent facing the fear of death as a condemned prisoner. Due to this, he became detached from a cruel and desperate reality and continues to live in a state of delusion even over ten years after his release.
Hakamada has had to spend the majority of his life fighting to clear his wrongful conviction, and it is questionable whether he can even comprehend today’s not guilty verdict due to the inhumanity of the situation. There can be no further delay in remedying Hakamada’s rights.
Therefore, our organization strongly urges the prosecutors to promptly waive their right to appeal and to finalize today’s not guilty verdict.
Moreover, in a resolution passed at our extraordinary general meeting on December 15, 2020, we declared, “We demand that the government immediately suspend the execution of the death penalty against those with confirmed death sentences and swiftly abolish the death penalty system.”
The necessity to abolish the death penalty system to prevent the execution of death sentences based on erroneous verdicts is high, and our organization will continue to advocate for the abolition of the death penalty system.
Furthermore, the “Hakamada Case” has once again highlighted the deficiencies of the current retrial law.
In the “Hakamada Case,” there were two applications for retrial before a retrial court was established. The first retrial application lasted nearly 27 years, while the second application took about 15 years. This delay is attributed to the lack of procedural regulations in the current retrial law regarding how to proceed with retrial applications.
In the “Hakamada Case,” about 600 pieces of evidence were newly disclosed by the prosecution at the retrial stage, significantly affecting the decision to commence the retrial and the not guilty ruling. However, these pieces of evidence were disclosed only after roughly 30 years had passed since the initial retrial application. The reason for this extensive time frame lies in the absence of a system for disclosing evidence in retrials under the current law.
Additionally, in the “Hakamada Case,” a decision to commence a retrial was made on March 27, 2014, but it took over 9 more years before a retrial was held. The reason for this delay is the recognition of the prosecutor’s objection to the retrial commencement decision. Ideally, the prosecutor should provide sufficient evidence on various issues, including the “five items of clothing,” during the trial following the retrial commencement; however, since there are no prohibitions against objections to the retrial commencement decision, the same issues have been subjected to judicial scrutiny multiple times prior to the retrial, contributing to the prolonged process.
Such issues are similarly seen in other retrial cases and constitute systematic and structural problems. To ensure that a tragedy like the “Hakamada Case” is never repeated, the retrial law must be amended without delay.
In response to this situation, on March 11 of this year, a bipartisan coalition of 134 members of the National Diet formed the “Parliamentary League for the Early Amendment of the Retrial Law for Wrongful Conviction Victims,” which has now grown to 347 members. Many local government heads, local assemblies, and various organizations have also voiced support for amendments to the retrial law.
Therefore, at the extraordinary general meeting held on March 28, 2023, our organization already adopted a “Resolution calling for amendments to the law concerning retrials.” Following the recent not guilty verdict in the “Hakamada Case,” we again strongly demand that the government and the National Diet urgently amend the retrial law, including the institutionalization of evidence disclosure procedures in retrial requests, prohibition of the prosecutor’s objections to retrial commencement decisions, and the structuring of procedural regulations for retrial request examinations.
September 26, 2024
Aichi Bar Association
President Rinfumi Ito