PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This Blog is interested in false confessions because of the disturbing number of exonerations in the USA, Canada and multiple other jurisdictions throughout the world, where, in the absence of incriminating forensic evidence the conviction is based on self-incrimination – and because of the growing body of scientific research showing how vulnerable suspects (especially young suspects) are to widely used interrogation methods such as the notorious ‘Reid Technique.’ As all too many of this Blog's post have shown, I also recognize that pressure for false confessions can take many forms, up to and including physical violence, even physical and mental torture.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog:
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Iwao Hakamada's sister Hideko Hakamada, who is participating in tomorrow's Foreign Correspondents Club Japan panel, has devoted almost aa half a century of her life to carrying for her brother, fighting for his life and seeking his exoneration. An extraordinary woman. Her love for her brother and her faith in his innocence stand out in an interview she gave to 'Japan Today' on December 16, 2018 which can be accessed at the link below. (Following the release). The panel is an indication of the contemporary 'newsworthiness' of the half-century old Hakamada case.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "In 2014, the Shizuoka District Court ordered a retrial of Iwao Hakamada, a former professional boxer who had been on death row for 45 years after being convicted of the murder of a family of four. Hakamada 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 Hakamada'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."
PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "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 Hakamada 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."
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RELEASE: Foreign Correspondents Club Japan: "Hideko Hakamada, sister of Iwao Hakamada; Katsuhiko Nishiijima, Hamada case lead attorney: Japan's Death Penalty on Trial," 13:00-14:00 Monday April 19, 2021.
GIST: "In 2014, the Shizuoka District Court ordered a retrial of Iwao Hakamada, a former professional boxer who had been on death row for 45 years after being convicted of the murder of a family of four. Hakamada 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 Hakamada'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 Hakamada'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 Hakamada'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 Hakamada 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."
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The entire release - with event details - can be read at:
https://www.fccj.or.jp/index.php/event/press-conference-japans-death-penalty-trial
Foreign Correspondents Club Japan Youtube site:
https://www.youtube.com/c/FCCJchannel/live
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JAPAN TODAY: (INTERVIEW WITH HIDEKO HAKAMADA:
"One of the capacity audience at Pope Francis' mass at Tokyo Dome on Nov 26 was 83-year-old Iwao Hakamada. A former professional boxer, Hakamada spent 48 years in prison, 46 of them on death row, after being convicted of the 1966 murders of a family of four in Shimizu City, Shizuoka. During his incarceration he was baptized and became a Catholic.
Hakamada had steadfastly claimed that his confession was forced, and after introduction of new DNA evidence possibly exculpating him, he was provisionally released from prison in 2014.
Jitsuwa Knuckles (Jan) sent a reporter to Hamamatsu City to interview Hakamada, where he resides with his elder sister, Hideko. She did most of the talking as Hakamada presently suffers from dementia.
"My brother lives in his own world," she tells the magazine. "I think he believes he himself is god, who rules the world."
According to Hideko, the former pro boxer is still in good enough condition to take a 3-hour stroll around the neighborhood each day.
"There are times when he doesn't recognize me as his sister any more," she says. "'You're a fake,' he tells me. 'An old Mexican hag.' It's natural for his mind to have withered. He spent 48 years in prison."
Dating back to the early postwar period, the Shizuoka Prefectural Police have accumulated an ignominious record of cases involving forced confessions that involved torturing of suspects and falsifying of evidence in order to obtain confessions, a guilty verdict and death sentence. In addition to Hakamada, other notorious cases from decades ago that were later overturned by higher courts included the Sachiura Incident (1948), the Futamata Incident (1950) and the Kojima Incident (1950).
It has been suggested that Hakamada was regarded as a prime suspect because of police bias against people who engaged in the fighting arts. (He had once been Japan's 6th-ranked flyweight-class boxer.) He also was unable to come up with a convincing alibi for the time of the killings.
The evidence produced by the police, five items of clothing that would not have fit the accused, were nevertheless convincing enough for the court to sentence him to death, and in 1980 the Supreme Court refused a retrial, setting the stage for his execution.
All this time, Hideko Hakamada continued to vocally support her younger brother.
"In 2014, Iwao was finally freed after 48 years of incarceration," she relates. "The Shizuoka District Court issued an order halting a retrial or proceeding with his execution. However that ruling was appealed and last year (2018), the Shizuoka High Court reversed the decision, which means we're headed for the Supreme Court again. This has been ongoing for 53 years now.
"Sadly, our mother, who had supported him, passed away in 1974, and it was then that I decided to take up his cause."
A civil servant and divorcee, Hideko visited her brother monthly and to this day says she has never taken a sightseeing holiday.
"I had no justification to enjoy myself as long as Iwao was fighting for his life," she explains. "Even now, at age 86 I exercise for 30 minutes a day. As long as he needs my help, I have to keep up my physical condition."
"From around 1991, the prison made it difficult to visit him, or even send letters. The ones I sent were discarded."
In 2003, while still in prison, Hakamada was able to post this on a social network: "There was a ceremony in the Lord's Kingdom and Iwao Hakamada emerged victorious. He received 500 million yen in compensation from the state...He is battling with germs from all over the world. The germs have been sentenced to death. He existed until January 8, but on that day, he himself was absorbed into God almighty."
The reporter asked Hideko, "If you had not been enmeshed in this incident (of a miscarriage of justice), how do you think the lives of you and your brother would have turned out?"
"I don't like to engage in that sort of speculation," she replied. "I had always believed in my brother's innocence. So what has happened was meant to be. It's our fate."
To have had a sister like that, who supported him for 53 years, and then to be able to see the pope in person, for Hamada, was perhaps the greatest freedom of all."
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
