Iwao Hakamada: Japan: Part Six. How his supporters found a unique way to help clear his name - before it is too late...Publisher's note: "Iwao Hakamada's supporters found a unique way to solve this problem (of passage of half a century) and get international attention: Producing a manga - a popular form of graphic depiction which can a powerful tool for achieving social change - that sets out the story of his life. A link that will take you to all six episodes ( English versions) of this Mango is provided below. They have been distributed without charge to get the maximum attention possible."

TO ACCESS THE ENGLISH VERSION OF ALL SIX EPISODES OF THE MANGA: 

http://jpbox.jp/hakamada-manga.html

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lPASSAGE OF THE DAY: "They (the mangos)  are powerful,    compelling, and haunting.  Read them. Share them. (They're meant to be shared.) Add your voices, and the voices of your families and friends, to those advocating for Iwao Hakamada - to those who are  seeking a retrial in which he has the opportunity to produce the forensic evidence which will prove he is innocent  - and  to those who will not rest until he is exonerated and totally free. Allow his case to be a testament to the valued principal that miscarriages of Justice have no boundaries - and the fundamental truth that time - not even a half century - can be allowed to diminish the stench of injustice."

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: "Iwao Hakamada: Japan: An innocent man is sentenced to death for a mass murder after a confession was tortured out of him by the police. Fifty years  later he is still alive, and  his lawyers, spurred on by his sister and his admirers in the boxing world from whence he came want him to be cleared, before it is too late. (He was born on March 10, 1936, which makes him 86-years-old.) Like any other miscarriage of justice,  attracting the public attention and support necessary for exoneration is crucial  But how does one maintain this public  attention from people who believe in his innocence   - which he has had from the outset - when the case is half a century old,  and so many people (two generations?) needed for support today  had not even been born when he was  wrongly convicted, and sentenced to death on September 1, 1968? Iwao Hakamada's  supporters found a unique way to solve this problem and get international attention: Producing a manga - a  popular form of  graphic depiction which can a powerful tool for achieving social change - that sets out the story of his life. A link that will take you  to all six episodes (English versions)  of this Mango is provided below. They have been distributed without charge to get the maximum attention possible. They are powerful,    compelling, and haunting.  Read them. Share them. (They're meant to be shared.) Add your voices, and the voices of your families and friends, to those advocating for Iwao Hakamada - to those who are  seeking a retrial in which he has the opportunity to produce the forensic evidence which will prove he is innocent  - to those who will not rest until he is exonerated and totally free. Allow his case to be a testament to the valued principal that miscarriages of Justice have no boundaries - and the fundamental truth that time - not even a half century - can be allowed to diminish the stench of injustice. 

Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.

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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;

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FINAL WORD:  (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases):  "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."

Lawyer Radha Natarajan:

Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions.   They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they’ve exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!

Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;