BACKGROUND: On June 30, 1966, there was a fire at the home of one of Hakamada's bosses. According to Hakamada, he helped extinguish the fire only to find the bodies of the executive, his wife, and two children, all stabbed to death. About ¥200,000 in cash was stolen from the victims' residence. Hakamada was interrogated and, in August 1966, he was arrested based on his confession and a tiny amount of blood and gasoline found on a pair of pajamas he owned. According to his lawyers, Hakamada was interrogated a total of 264 hours, for as many as 16 hours a session, over 23 days to obtain the confession. They added that he was denied water or toilet breaks during the interrogation. At his trial, Hakamada retracted the confession, saying police had kicked and clubbed him to obtain it, and pleaded not guilty. .....Prosecutors put aside the pajamas and instead presented five pieces of bloody clothing that were found in a tank at the miso factory in August 1967, 14 months after the crime. They argued that the clothing came from the killer and said police had found the blood types of the victims on the clothing. They argued that Hakamada must have murdered the family in these clothes and then changed into pajamas to commit the arson. Hakamada supporters said the case was full of holes, arguing that the alleged murder weapon – a fruit knife with a 12.19-centimetre (4.80 in) blade – could not have withstood the forty stabbings of the victims without sustaining significant damage, and that the pajamas used to justify the arrest had disappeared and been replaced with the bloody clothing. The clothes were too small for Hakamada but the prosecution argued they had shrunk in the miso tank and the label had a "B" or medium size label on it which would have fitted Hakamada. However the B indicated the colour Black not the size. The blood stains on the clothes were too dark and the colour of the clothes too light to have been lying in the miso tank.......After his appeal was denied in 1980, Hakamada obtained a new team of lawyers. In 1981, they filed a request for a retrial, asking for the physical evidence to be re-examined. In the investigation, it was determined the alleged murder weapon was the wrong size to produce the stab wounds, that a door supposedly used to enter the home was actually locked, and that the bloody pants were too small to have been worn by Hakamada. Backed by the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations(JFBA), Hakamada's lawyers concluded the first trial had failed to establish that any of the clothing belonged to him. After 13 years of gathering evidence, the request was heard and denied by the Shizuoka District Court on August 9, 1994.[3] In 2000, an attempt was made to extract DNA from the bloody clothing, but available techniques did not allow for any to be detected. The Tokyo High Court upheld the retrial denial on August 27, 2004....….A 2008 DNA test suggested the blood on the clothing used as evidence did not match Hakamada's, prompting a second retrial request from his lawyers. Further tests in 2011 supported the conclusion. On March 14, 2012, a blood sample was taken from Hakamada for a more accurate DNA test to compare with the blood sample on the shoulder of the T-shirt found among the murderer's clothes. The blood was thought to be that of the attacker, and had been previously determined unlikely to be from any of the victims.The testing revealed that the blood did not match Hakamada's DNA. The prosecution disputed the validity of the DNA tests.…...On March 27, 2014, Hakamada was released from prison and granted a retrial by the Shizuoka District Court. A statement from the court said there was reason to believe evidence had been fabricated in the original trial and that keeping the 78-year-old jailed while waiting on the retrial would have been "unbearably unjust". Amnesty International remarked, "Time is running out for Hakamada to receive the fair trial he was denied more than four decades ago. If ever there was a case that merits a retrial, this is it." A prosecution appeal of the decision to release Hakamada was denied. Hakamada is the sixth Japanese death row inmate to be granted a retrial. Four of the previous five were eventually acquitted. .....In June 2018, the Tokyo High Court overturned the ruling that had Hakamada released. He was allowed to retain his freedom due to his age until the case returns to the Supreme Court. That August the nation's highest prosecutors' office exhorted the Supreme Court to reject Hakamada's appeal to "stop the situation in which the sentence is suspended unnecessarily" Wikipedia);
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Currently, Hideko (his older sister) is the only person requesting a retrial. In consideration of “just in case something should happen to Ms. Hideko,” the defense team filed a petition with the court to add Muramatsu Naomi as a retrial petitioner and to proceed with the trial with multiple retrial petitioners in the future. The court granted the motion, which lawyers say is an unprecedented procedure. Hideko submitted the following opinion to the judge as a petitioner for a retrial. “Iwao has been proving his innocence for 56 years. Please make the decision to start a retrial. I apologize” (original mom). At the closing argument on the 5th, the prosecution did not add any evidence or statements to the closing opinion filed on the 2nd. Nishijima, head of the defense team, said, “I am certain that a retrial will be started,” and Hideko said, “I think a decision will be made to start a retrial.”
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STORY: “Final opinion” submitted for remand of “Hakamada case” Decision on whether to start retrial will be made by March next year," by Reporter Asuka Matsuki, published by The Japan News, on December 10, 2022.
GIST: "On December 2, a tripartite discussion (court, defense team, and prosecutor) was held at the Tokyo High Court to remand the so-called “Hakamada case,” and both the defense and the prosecution submitted final statements. Closing arguments were held on the 5th, and an interview between Iwao Hakamada (86) and the judge was realized.
What is the “remand trial” in the Hakamada case?
The “Hakamada Incident” was an incident in 1966 in Shimizu Ward, Shizuoka City (former Shimizu City, Shizuoka Prefecture) in which four members of a family of managing directors of a miso manufacturing company were murdered.
Iwao Hakamada, who was indicted as a defendant, continued to claim his innocence, but the death penalty was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 1980.
After that, in 2014, the Shizuoka District Court started a retrial and decided to suspend the execution of Mr. Hakamada’s death sentence and detention, and Mr. Hakamada was released from the detention center.
In 2018, the Tokyo High Court reversed the Shizuoka District Court’s decision and dismissed the request for a retrial, but in 2020, the Supreme Court Third Petty Bench said, “The decision of the Tokyo High Court had not been exhausted.” remanded the hearing to (sic)
Since then, until now, there has been a series of “remand trials” to decide whether to initiate a retrial or reject the request for a retrial.
In the remand trial, the point of contention was the “redness” of blood stains on five pieces of clothing believed to belong to the criminal, which were found in a miso tank near the scene about one year and two months after Mr. Hakamada’s arrest. rice field. (sic)
The defense side conducted a demonstration experiment, and based on their expert knowledge, argued that “if the blood on the cloth is soaked in miso for more than a year, the blood stains will not remain red.”
In response to this, the prosecutors have also conducted their own demonstration experiments, and based on the results of the experiments, they have argued that “redness may remain.”
In a final opinion filed on the 2nd, the defense team said that new and old evidence regarding the color of the miso-soaked blood, taken together, raised a reasonable suspicion that the clothes were in the miso tank at the time of the incident. He insisted again that he did.
On the other hand, the prosecutor’s office argued that the suspension of the execution of the sentence should be canceled and the body should be detained. In response to this, the defense team pointed out that the experiment conducted by the prosecution had problems such as “the amount of miso was too small” and “the experiment was conducted under conditions that tend to leave redness, but no redness remained.” . He countered that the prosecutor’s experiment actually supported the defense’s assertion that “bloodstains do not remain red.”
At a press conference held on the 5th, Katsuhiko Nishijima, head of the defense team, said, “I am convinced that the 2018 decision of the Tokyo High Court (the so-called ‘Oshima decision’) to revoke the Shizuoka District Court’s decision to open a retrial was erroneous. I do,” he said.
Iwao Hakamada suffers from a “detention reaction (detention neurosis)” due to his years of detention, and even after his release, he continues to find it difficult to establish a conversation. His older sister Hideko and his supporters call Hakamada’s words “a world of delusion.”
During the hearing of a criminal case, the defendant and the judge usually meet. However, due to the detention response, it has been difficult to bring the defendant, Mr. Hakamada, to court in previous hearings. However, at the closing argument on the 5th, an interview between Mr. Hakamada and three judges was realized.
The public prosecutor and Hideko also attended the interview. Considering that it would be difficult for Hakamada to converse in a crowded courtroom, the court took special measures to have the interview held in a separate room (a meeting room within the court) rather than in the courtroom.
Due to health issues, “I didn’t know until the very end whether Mr. Hakamada would be able to come to the meeting,” said Kiyomi Kakugae. Also, during the interview, Mr. Hakamada repeatedly said, “There is no incident” and “No one died” because of his reaction to the detention, and made nonsensical statements such as “It’s the year of the dragon.”
However, according to Mr. Kakugae and Mr. Hideko, “The judge looked at Mr. Hakamada kindly.” He gave a polite answer.
Whether or not to retrial will be decided by March 2023
Currently, Hideko is the only person requesting a retrial. In consideration of “just in case something should happen to Ms. Hideko,” the defense team filed a petition with the court to add Muramatsu Naomi as a retrial petitioner and to proceed with the trial with multiple retrial petitioners in the future. The court granted the motion, which lawyers say is an unprecedented procedure.
Hideko submitted the following opinion to the judge as a petitioner for a retrial. “Iwao has been proving his innocence for 56 years. Please make the decision to start a retrial. I apologize” (original mom).
Also, in response to the prosecution’s claim that if the request for a retrial is not approved, Hakamada’s physique will be immediately detained, the defense’s defense said, “This is unacceptable. Even if it is a case, the custody is a separate issue,” said Nishijima.
A decision on whether to initiate a retrial will be made by the end of the fiscal year, March 2023. The decision date will be announced 30 days in advance, so the decision date will be known by the end of February 2023 at the latest."
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resurce. 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/
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/
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;
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