This is the 1st installment in a 3rd series of articles focusing on capital punishment. When handing down rulings in serious criminal cases, judges have to decide whether defendants should pay the ultimate penalty for their crimes or continue to live and atone for their sins. This series looks at the steps judges take before reaching their final decisions.
In the early summer of 2004, Kenjiro Tao, then presiding judge in a murder case at the Tokyo High Court, sat in a room on the 15th floor of the courthouse in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo, reading for the first time a lower court ruling on a case he was scheduled to take charge of.
"I felt uncomfortable about the ruling and wondered whether it was right," Tao said.
The ruling, which was handed down at the Shizuoka District Court earlier that year, concerned the murder of a female college student in Mishima, Shizuoka Prefecture, in January 2002.
The 19-year-old victim was working part-time at a local izakaya restaurant to help reduce the financial burden shouldered by her parents in covering her school expenses. While walking home from work one day, she was bundled into a car by a stranger who raped her and later tied her up on a mountainside road, poured kerosene over her and set her alight.
Reading about an innocent woman being robbed of life in such a cruel way struck Tao as completely irrational and filled him with a sense of helplessness. "It was absolutely inhuman," he said.
Although prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for the perpetrator, the Numazu branch of the Shizuoka District Court sentenced the man to life imprisonment instead.
Having spent more than 36 years as a judge, Tao had an extensive experience with criminal trials.
In 1997, while serving as presiding judge at the Tokyo District Court, he sentenced Tsutomu Miyazaki to death for abducting and killing four girls in Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture. Miyazaki was executed last year following the finalization of his death penalty in 2006.
Though the defendant's legal competency was the main issue of contention in the Miyazaki case, barely any facts were disputed between prosecutors and defense counsels in the Mishima case.
"All the circumstances need to be verified before a conclusion is reached--capital punishment or life imprisonment. It'll be a tough case," Tao recalls thinking.
Tao did not immediately consult with the two associate judges in the case.
"I wanted to go over the case records from both the prosecutors' and the attorneys' standpoints multiple times before consulting with the other judges, thus giving us all time to thoroughly examine the case," Tao said.
The victim's bereaved family fervently hoped the killer would be put to death.
"I want to kill [the defendant] by setting him alight, just as [he did to my daughter]. I want to bring home to him how painful and terrifying it was and how much she suffered," the woman's father was quoted as telling investigators in the record of his oral statement.
"The woman's bereaved family were so worn out they could no longer shed tears--they were mere shells of their former selves," a prosecutor involved in the investigation said.
The district court justified its decision not to hand down a death sentence by citing reasons such as the crime was not the result of a carefully worked-out plan and that the defendant had no record of hurting or killing others. Tao closely examined each reason.
Although the defendant, Junya Hattori, 37, had not planned the crime, he attempted to destroy evidence--a plastic kerosene container--after the incident.
In addition, he had previously spent time in a juvenile reformatory and prison, and had committed the crime less than a year after being released on parole.
As he examined all these reasons, Tao recognized the difficulty the lower court experienced.
"I could well understand the areas that troubled the lower court, but compared with the severity of the crime--burning someone alive--the reasons cited could not be recognized as favoring the defendant," Tao said.
After questioning Hattori and cross-examining the bereaved family members as witnesses, the hearing came to a close in January 2005.
Following consultations, the 3 judges decided that capital punishment was the only option open to them.
Tao started reading out the ruling shortly after 10 a.m. on March 29, 2005, at the Tokyo High Court.
"I'll state the reasons before handing down the decision," he told Hattori.
Source: Yomiuri Shimbun
In the early summer of 2004, Kenjiro Tao, then presiding judge in a murder case at the Tokyo High Court, sat in a room on the 15th floor of the courthouse in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo, reading for the first time a lower court ruling on a case he was scheduled to take charge of.
"I felt uncomfortable about the ruling and wondered whether it was right," Tao said.
The ruling, which was handed down at the Shizuoka District Court earlier that year, concerned the murder of a female college student in Mishima, Shizuoka Prefecture, in January 2002.
The 19-year-old victim was working part-time at a local izakaya restaurant to help reduce the financial burden shouldered by her parents in covering her school expenses. While walking home from work one day, she was bundled into a car by a stranger who raped her and later tied her up on a mountainside road, poured kerosene over her and set her alight.
Reading about an innocent woman being robbed of life in such a cruel way struck Tao as completely irrational and filled him with a sense of helplessness. "It was absolutely inhuman," he said.
Although prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for the perpetrator, the Numazu branch of the Shizuoka District Court sentenced the man to life imprisonment instead.
Having spent more than 36 years as a judge, Tao had an extensive experience with criminal trials.
In 1997, while serving as presiding judge at the Tokyo District Court, he sentenced Tsutomu Miyazaki to death for abducting and killing four girls in Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture. Miyazaki was executed last year following the finalization of his death penalty in 2006.
Though the defendant's legal competency was the main issue of contention in the Miyazaki case, barely any facts were disputed between prosecutors and defense counsels in the Mishima case.
"All the circumstances need to be verified before a conclusion is reached--capital punishment or life imprisonment. It'll be a tough case," Tao recalls thinking.
Tao did not immediately consult with the two associate judges in the case.
"I wanted to go over the case records from both the prosecutors' and the attorneys' standpoints multiple times before consulting with the other judges, thus giving us all time to thoroughly examine the case," Tao said.
The victim's bereaved family fervently hoped the killer would be put to death.
"I want to kill [the defendant] by setting him alight, just as [he did to my daughter]. I want to bring home to him how painful and terrifying it was and how much she suffered," the woman's father was quoted as telling investigators in the record of his oral statement.
"The woman's bereaved family were so worn out they could no longer shed tears--they were mere shells of their former selves," a prosecutor involved in the investigation said.
The district court justified its decision not to hand down a death sentence by citing reasons such as the crime was not the result of a carefully worked-out plan and that the defendant had no record of hurting or killing others. Tao closely examined each reason.
Although the defendant, Junya Hattori, 37, had not planned the crime, he attempted to destroy evidence--a plastic kerosene container--after the incident.
In addition, he had previously spent time in a juvenile reformatory and prison, and had committed the crime less than a year after being released on parole.
As he examined all these reasons, Tao recognized the difficulty the lower court experienced.
"I could well understand the areas that troubled the lower court, but compared with the severity of the crime--burning someone alive--the reasons cited could not be recognized as favoring the defendant," Tao said.
After questioning Hattori and cross-examining the bereaved family members as witnesses, the hearing came to a close in January 2005.
Following consultations, the 3 judges decided that capital punishment was the only option open to them.
Tao started reading out the ruling shortly after 10 a.m. on March 29, 2005, at the Tokyo High Court.
"I'll state the reasons before handing down the decision," he told Hattori.
Source: Yomiuri Shimbun
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