PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The former professional boxer was arrested in 1966 for allegedly murdering the senior director of the miso paste maker where he worked along with his wife and their two children. They were found stabbed to death in their Shizuoka Prefecture home after it was set on fire. Though he initially confessed to the killings during intense interrogation, he pleaded not guilty at his trial for murder, robbery, and arson. His retrial began after the Tokyo High Court, ordered by the Supreme Court in 2020 to reexamine its 2018 decision not to reopen the case, reversed course in March 2023. The high court cited the unreliability of the main evidence, which consisted of five bloodstained pieces of clothing that prosecutors said were Hakamada's."
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STORY: "Verdict due in retrial of 88-yr-old man over 1966 quadruple murder," published by Mainichi Japan, on September 21, 2024.
GIST: TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A Japanese court will hand down a ruling Thursday in the retrial of an 88-year-old man for a 1966 quadruple murder in which he is seeking to be formally acquitted a decade after being released due to doubts over the evidence against him.
Iwao Hakamada, who still technically faces capital punishment, spent nearly half a century behind bars, making him the world's longest-serving death row inmate at the time when new evidence led to his release from incarceration in 2014.
Prosecutors again demanded the death penalty in the retrial at the Shizuoka District Court, whose hearings concluded in May, but Hakamada will likely be acquitted as retrials are only held when there are substantial doubts about guilt.
Hakamada's case marks the fifth time in postwar Japan that a retrial has been held in a case in which the death penalty has been given. The four previous cases all resulted in acquittals in the 1980s.
Under the country's criminal procedure law, a retrial is granted if there is "clear evidence the accused is not guilty."
His second appeal for a retrial was filed in 2008 by his 91-year-old sister Hideko, after Hakamada's mental state deteriorated due to his long incarceration, with signs of psychological strain manifesting from around 1980, when his death sentence was finalized.
Hakamada first appealed for a retrial in 1981, and the decades that elapsed before his retrial finally started in October last year have led legal experts to call for revising the retrial system, which sets a high hurdle for the convicted to reopen a case.
Some are also hoping that debate over abolishing the death penalty will gain momentum in Japan, since Hakamada still suffers from post-incarceration syndrome, exacerbated by decades of not knowing when he might be executed and severely restricted contact with anyone outside his cell.
The former professional boxer was arrested in 1966 for allegedly murdering the senior director of the miso paste maker where he worked along with his wife and their two children. They were found stabbed to death in their Shizuoka Prefecture home after it was set on fire.
Though he initially confessed to the killings during intense interrogation, he pleaded not guilty at his trial for murder, robbery, and arson.
His retrial began after the Tokyo High Court, ordered by the Supreme Court in 2020 to reexamine its 2018 decision not to reopen the case, reversed course in March 2023. The high court cited the unreliability of the main evidence, which consisted of five bloodstained pieces of clothing that prosecutors said were Hakamada's.
After his release in 2014, Hakamada started living with his sister in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture. For the first two months, she said, her brother paced around the house every day in the same manner as he used to walk around in his cell while he was detained.
"Though 10 years have passed since his release, he still suffers from the aftereffects of incarceration, as he is in a delusional world and wary of men and becomes upset when a man visits the house," Hideko said in a closing statement in the retrial.
"He cannot sleep unless he leaves the lights on at bedtime. Although he has recovered somewhat after his release, his mind has not healed," she said."
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