death penalty news September 16, 2004
JAPAN: More business for the hangman Japan is at it again. The announcement of two executions this week tells the world that the old, familiar ritual of the killing season is back with a vengeance. The state hangman is quietly going about his paid business of exacting revenge on some of those who have been found guilty of murder by punishing them in like fashion. Make no mistake about it ? capital punishment is alive and well today under the direction of Mr Koizumi's coalition cabinet. No doubt we will be told that public opinion strongly endorses such acts and you can bet your boots that the statistics are already in the works, just waiting to be trotted out down to the last decimal point. As if this proves anything except that many feel instinctively that it's the only tried and true way of avoiding chaos in society. It might certainly be an interesting experiment to discover if any announcement of a temporary abandonment of the death penalty would make the slightest difference in Japan's serious crime figures. Equally predictably, official spokesmen will be getting ready with their prepared scripts to tell us that they, too, know that the nation needs to be protected against child killers, subway terrorists, arsonists, rapists and sword-wielding thugs fuelled on cocktails of booze and drugs. Again, this is obviously the case, but it hardly demonstrates that putting a noose around an individual's neck works as a deterrent against future criminal acts or does much beyond satisfying the emotions of those who want to see the perpetrators rot in hell. Japan is one of a shrinking number of nations that appear to believe that capital punishment is required to maintain public order and is necessary because of the vehement insistence of domestic opinion. Not all Japanese politicians would agree, but clearly the present government is not about to halt executions. It would rather not consider if the hangman's work achieves anything but revenge and possible solace for the victim's families and friends. For now we are not going to get much leadership in this area or have a grand debate on the subject. Support for capital punishment is too entrenched for counter voices to expect to make much impression on the cabinet. It might, though, help the abolitionists' case if a degree of pressure on Japan's policies toward crime and punishment were applied from abroad. Unfortunately, the fact that so many states in the U.S. also conduct executions through a host of different procedures including the electric chair, lethal injection and the noose is certain to strengthen Japan's determination to maintain the status quo. Given the pro-American direction of Japan's entire postwar foreign policy it is unlikely that the European Union's strong and vocal views against hanging will be able to influence Tokyo's position on capital punishment beyond causing popular resentment. Similar calls by groups in Europe deploring the prevalence of capital punishment in the United States often result in this kind of backlash where one continent sees itself as "civilized" and berates the other as unworthy. Should the U.S. Supreme Court, however, eventually rule against the constitutionality of the death penalty on the grounds that it is a form of inherently cruel and unusual punishment, then there could be some grounds for hope that the issue might be reviewed. Those in the human rights movement who want to scrap the rope and the trapdoor face enormous barriers. To explain that Japanese courts might mistakenly sentence the innocent to death for crimes committed by others or that some found guilty have been festering on death row for decades waiting for their walk to the gallows is no easy matter. Besides, the authorities are generally reckoned to get it right and any suspicions of foul-ups are best kept quiet even when the mental health of those on Death Row may be in doubt. Reformers have no choice but to argue patiently and trust that some future justice minister will not only refuse to order executions on his or her watch, but ignite an open debate on capital punishment. Perhaps in the next generation the present process may yet end and the hangman might be silently pensioned off. His forced retirement can't come soon enough. (source: Japan Today)
