Hideko Hakamata, Sister of Iwao Hakamata
Katsuhiko Nishijima, Hakamata case lead attorney, Attorney at law

Japan's Death Penalty on Trial

13:00-14:00 Monday, April 19, 2021
The speech and Q & A will be in Japanese with English interpretation

In 2014, the Shizuoka District Court ordered a retrial of Iwao Hakamata, a former professional boxer who had been on death row for 45 years after being convicted of the murder of a family of four. Hakamata insisted that he had been forced to sign a confession by police. DNA testing in 2008 undermined a key plank of the case when it found that bloodstains used to convict Hakamata's were not his. Given his advanced age (he is now 85) and fragile health, many people assumed that he would be freed for good but prosecutors have not abandoned attempts to return him to death row. In 2018, the Tokyo High Court reversed the request for a retrial.

Now Hakamata's supporters have been given reason to hope. On December 22nd, the Supreme Court overturned the High Court's 2018 decision, reviving the possibility of his eventual acquittal. The top court was usually critical of the High Court's earlier ruling, saying it "seriously violated justice" by not seriously reviewing the evidence for Hakamata's conviction. As the family anxiously await a decision by prosecutors and the High Court on whether to accept a retrial, they have agreed to come to the FCCJ and discuss the case and its implications for Japan's death penalty.

Japan is one of only two industrial democracies (with the United States) that retains capital punishment.  The death penalty in Japan has been under fire for years for what one campaigner called its "peculiar cruelties". Inmates like Hakamata are kept in solitary confinement and forced to wait an average of more than seven years, and sometimes decades, in small cells while the legal system grinds on. They live every day believing it could be their last because of a rule that inmates cannot be told of their execution until the morning it happens.

How to attend: 
Please register at front@fccj.or.jp with your name, the name of your media outlet, and FCCJ membership number. Due to space restrictions attendance will be limited to 20 people. Doors open 30 minutes before the event. Please sign in, giving your name and contact details at the reception, and have your temperature taken before proceeding. 

How to watch online: https://www.youtube.com/c/FCCJchannel/live 　
Livestreaming of the press events will be available and video of this event will be uploaded to our FCCJ YouTube channel. 

How to ask questions: https://forms.gle/VppkyipLMbPNsuu48    　
Members watching the event online can submit questions for the speakers in advance using this submission form.

TV crew: Please make a reservation at front@fccj.or.jp. Doors open for TV crews only at 45 minutes before the event. There will be five positions available for livestreaming. 

Professional Activities Committee