Who says there is no death penalty in Japan？ Abe government hanged 21 people in five years.
CCTV News:Today (December 20th), at 15:00 Japan time, the Jiangge case was decided in Tokyo District Court, Japan. The court sentenced the defendant Chen Shifeng to 20 years’ imprisonment for intentional homicide and intimidation, which was far lower than Jiangge’s mother’s demand for the death penalty.
Generally speaking, Japan’s death sentence should consider the nature, motivation, form, severity, feelings of the victim’s family, social influence, the age of the offender, and whether there is a criminal record. In reality, the Japanese court sentenced the death penalty, depending on whether there were more than two victims. In addition, it is necessary to investigate whether it is excessive murder or premeditated murder. Only when both of the above are met can the death penalty be imposed.
Two murderers in Japan were hanged yesterday.
Yesterday, December 19th, the Japanese Ministry of Justice announced that two condemned prisoners were hanged in the early hours of that day, including a man who was underage at the time of committing the crime. This is the fifth time since July this year that Japan has executed the death penalty again. According to Japanese media NHK, 44-year-old Guan Guangyan and 69-year-old Hideki Matsui were executed on the 19th, both men. It is understood that after being sentenced to death, both of them appealed for retrial.
Guan Guangyan was 19 years old when he committed the crime. In March, 1992, Guan Guangyan broke into a residential house in Kawaguchi, Chiba Prefecture, killing a middle-aged couple, their 4-year-old daughter and their 83-year-old mother, seriously injuring their 15-year-old daughter and stealing 340,000 yen in cash.
At that time, there was a debate in Japanese society about whether Guan Guangyan should be sentenced to death because he was less than the 20-year-old "threshold" set by Japanese criminal code for adults. In 2001, Guan Guangyan was sentenced to death for robbery and murder. Japan’s Supreme Court said, "Guan Guangyan entered the victim’s home because he was demanded to pay money by a violent gang, and killed a family of four. This is a very sadistic incident. Although he was underage at the time of committing the crime, he should also be sentenced to death."
Kyodo News reported that this is the second juvenile death row executed in Japan in the past 20 years. The last person executed was "murderer writer" Nagayama Zefu. In 1968, Masao Yongshan was arrested at the age of 19 for shooting four people at random in the street. In prison, he wrote and published books inspired by his own experience, and became a "famous writer", which made a sensation. In 1990, Masao Yongshan was sentenced to death and was executed seven years later. This case prompted the Japanese judicial circles to form the "Yongshan Criterion" to measure the punishment of murder cases, that is, to consider the number of victims, crime tolerance and social influence to judge whether the murderer should be sentenced to death.
In February 1994, Yoshidaiji Matsui killed his girlfriend and his parents in Anzhong City, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. In 1999, Yoshidaiji Matsui was sentenced to death for murder and other crimes.
Yoko Kamikawa, Minister of Justice, said that the execution order was "carefully considered" and that "these criminal acts are extremely bad and extremely painful to the victims and their families. Before the execution of the death penalty, there is a full trial procedure. "
Since Shinzo Abe came to power again, 21 people have been executed on death row.
Japan is one of the few developed countries that retain the death penalty in the world. But judging without killing has gradually become the norm. Take Guan Guangyan and Hideyoshi Matsui, who were executed yesterday, for example. Both of them committed crimes more than 20 years ago and killed many people by cruel means, but they were not executed until today.
This is because the "retrial system" stipulated in Japan’s Criminal Procedure Law gives criminals a lot of right to appeal, which leads criminals to file appeals or pardon requests for various reasons, so as to delay the execution of the death penalty. Even after all the appeal opportunities have been exhausted, the Japanese Minister of Justice has to sign an execution order before it can be executed. However, many ministers of justice are unwilling to act as executioners for various reasons, which leads to many prisoners on death row being detained for longer and longer, and some can last for more than 30 years. Many condemned prisoners die of old age in prison before the day of execution. As of December 15th, there are still 124 death row inmates in Japan who have not been executed.
It is worth mentioning that the Abe government, which came to power in 2012, suddenly tightened the rope on the gallows. Less than two months after taking office, the Abe government executed three prisoners on death row. Some commentators said that the Abe government is serious about the death penalty, and the most important thing is to "comply with public opinion" and gain support.
According to Japanese media reports, up to now, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has executed 21 people on death row since he came to power again.
Won’t Japan be executed without the death penalty in the first instance?
Since Japan is cautious about the death penalty, if Chen Shifeng was not sentenced to death in the first-instance judgment of Jiangge’s case, is there nothing that Jiangge’s mother can do? The answer is no, because there was such a case in Japan.
In 1999, Takayuki Otsuki, who just turned 18, killed a young housewife in Hiroshima, and then raped her body. What is even more outrageous is that he was worried that his 11-month-old baby girl would cry endlessly and attract the attention of his neighbors. He first threw the baby to the ground and strangled it after seeing that it was still struggling and crying.
Because the murderer Takayuki Otsuki was only 18 years old when he committed the crime, but he was not over 20 years old, considering the seriousness of the case, the case was transferred from the juvenile court to the Yamaguchi District Court for trial. On June 30th of that year, the Shankou County Procuratorate filed a lawsuit against Takayuki Otsuki for murder, rape and robbery, and demanded that he be sentenced to death.
On March 22, 2000, the Yamaguchi District Court found in the first instance that Fukuda killed Yayoi, the victim, when he tried to rape, and murdered his daughter Xixiajin to prevent the crime from being exposed. Although the evidence is conclusive and the facts are clear, and the defendant’s methods of committing crimes are so cruel, the judge of first instance still did not adopt the prosecution’s proposal of imposing the death penalty, and sentenced Takayuki Otsuki to life imprisonment on the grounds that "the defendant’s future is still infinite and he has repented".
Although the prosecution appealed, on March 14, 2002, the Yamaguchi High Court held that Fukuda "had the possibility to turn over a new leaf" and upheld the judgment of the first instance. However, Muramura did not give up his efforts to avenge his wife and children, and went around shouting. On April 22nd, 2008, after nine years of litigation marathon, the Hiroshima High Court sentenced Takayuki Otsuki to death, which is the youngest Japanese prisoner to be sentenced to death since records began in 1966.
This precedent has also become a milestone in the history of Japanese justice, and the wicked finally got what they deserve. Although the Japanese Bar Association has been fighting hard, it still filed a retrial request and protest until 2012. However, the Japanese Supreme Court rejected the request. At present, Takayuki Otsuki is waiting for the Minister of Justice to sign the death order in Hiroshima Detention Center. Even if no minister of justice is willing to sign his execution order. The young man will also spend his whole life in prison.
Throughout the Japanese judicial circles, although the death penalty is extremely difficult, there is no doubt that the justice system in Japan is still extremely sound. As long as Jiangge’s mother has an indomitable heart and can persuade the Japanese prosecutor to ask for a second trial, this sentence is not an end. (Text/Lin Kongshi)