[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 17




CHINA:

China comes to defense of its human rights record


China, which executes more people than any other country in the world and
admits nearly all defendants in criminal cases are found guilty, launched
an exhibition on Friday promoting its human rights record.

The 10-day exhibition will "truthfully record China's efforts to promote
and safeguard the people's right to life and right to develop and, more
broadly, their political, economic, social and cultural rights," Xinhua
news agency said, quoting organizers.

China, with a judicial system widely seen as designed only for conviction,
has found nearly all 6 million defendants in criminal cases guilty in the
past 9 years, state media said last week.

Human rights groups have accused Beijing of lagging far behind
international standards on criminal justice with widespread police
torture, lack of due process in trials and the absence of presumption of
innocence.

The United States routinely criticizes China's rights record from
everything from persecution of minorities to censorship of the Internet
and of media critics.

China rejects that criticism, saying that the basic rights of its 1.3
billion people to food, clothing and housing take priority over individual
civil liberties, and pointing to efforts to clean up its judiciary and use
of the death penalty.

"We hope the exhibition will give people ... a clearer picture of how
human rights have developed in the Chinese context and more confidence in
China's commitment to human rights as it builds a socialist harmonious
society," Cai Wu, director of the Information Office of the State Council,
was quoted at saying at the opening ceremony.

(source: Reuters)






JAPAN:

Courts ignore reasonable doubt: lawyers----Counsels in Wakayama, Sendai
clinic murder cases criticize process


Lawyers involved in 2 famous murder cases say the courts have abandoned
the basic legal principle that a person must be acquitted unless their
guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt, with the result that some
people are being wrongly convicted.

At a recent symposium in Tokyo, Yoshihiro Yasuda, a defense lawyer in the
notorious curry poisonings in Wakayama Prefecture, and Yasuo Abe, on the
team for the nurse who was found guilty for the murder of an elderly
patient at a Sendai clinic and the attempted murders of several others,
said their clients were not treated fairly.

Yasuda, a member of the defense team for Masumi Hayashi, who was convicted
of killing four people with arsenic-laced curry at a summer festival in
her neighborhood, reckoned the court found Hayashi guilty of mass murder
on grounds that "she might have been the one who committed the crime."

Four people died in July 1998 after eating poisoned curry at a community
festival in Wakayama Prefecture.

"Once Ms. Hayashi became a suspect, police worked to collect 'evidence' to
support their suspicions, and the court handed down a guilty verdict" even
though the evidence was only circumstantial, the Tokyo-based lawyer said.
"The principle to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt has been completely
forgotten."

Yasuda, a leading opponent of the death penalty, joined Hayashi's defense
when she appealed her death sentence to the Supreme Court. That appeal
remains pending.

The Wakayama District Court found her guilty in 2002 on grounds that the
arsenic found in the curry pot the four ate from was identical to the
arsenic powder found at her home and other places she had been. It also
determined that she was the only person who had the opportunity to poison
the curry. She was also convicted of trying to separately fatally poison
others, including her ex-pest exterminator husband, Kenji, for insurance.

Lawyer Yoshihiro Yasuda speaks at a recent symposium in Tokyo on the
courts' treatment of the accused.

The Osaka High Court upheld the verdict last year, saying, "It has been
proven to an extent that allows hardly any doubt" that she was the
culprit.

Yasuda told the symposium that the arsenic analysis does not alone prove
her guilt and criticized the lower courts for convicting her even though a
motive could not be established. At the time of her arrest, however, it
was reported that she had been criticized by neighbors for not
participating more in the festival, and that revenge may have been a
factor.

"If it was an indiscriminate mass murder against the community's
residents, the question is why Ms. Hayashi committed it?" the defense
lawyer said. "It may not have been murder, and I think the courts could
have painted another picture of the incident."

After pleading not guilty at the district court, Hayashi exercised her
constitutional right to remain silent. When she did speak to deny the
charges at her appeals trial, the high court held her previous silence
against her. The court said it was "impossible to think that the
defendant, who until now has not spoken about the facts with sincerity, is
suddenly starting to speak the truth."

Yasuda said the media circus before her arrest turned public opinion
against her. People believed she was guilty and she was isolated by her
community. "Given these circumstances, the defense team could not find
anyone who would support her or provide evidence in her defense."

Sendai-based lawyer Yasuo Abe, another panelist at the symposium, shared
his concern of possible judicial impropriety in the case of nurse Daisuke
Mori. He has been sentenced to life for killing a patient and attempting
to kill 4 others at a Sendai clinic with a muscle relaxant injected into
their intravenous drips.

Abe told the forum the charges against him have not been proven beyond a
reasonable doubt. Mori is appealing to the Supreme Court. The Sendai
District Court convicted Mori in 2004, ruling he was the only one capable
of committing the crime -- the same logic used against Hayashi.

The Sendai High Court upheld the ruling in March, saying, "It is unlikely
that the muscle relaxant was mistakenly injected into intravenous drips
five times at the same hospital in such a short time. . . . It is obvious
that someone injected it on purpose."

"Mr. Mori was suspected because the death toll increased after he began
working there in 1999, but the rise came about once the clinic started
accepting more senile patients in order to improve its business," Abe
claimed. It was reported after Mori's arrest that several elderly patients
had died under mysterious circumstances, but he was not tried over those
fatalities.

The defense team argued that the patients' conditions worsened due to
illness and other factors, not because of muscle relaxant.

Abe said that despite Mori's claims of innocence, the newspapers reported
the criticisms from victims and their families against Mori's lawyers,
which turned public opinion against the defense.

The courts' position, coupled with biased media coverage, means defense
lawyers are finding their jobs more difficult than ever before, he said.

"The criminal courts are now dead, or rather, they have been killed,"
Yasuda said.

Yasuda is not optimistic about the future of the legal system. He said the
changes to speed up court procedures will stop lawyers from being able to
properly defend their clients.

He was particularly concerned about allowing people victimized by crime to
participate more in court proceedings.

"A court will be a place to condemn a defendant if victims are allowed to
join. . . . The court will not be able to guarantee a defendant's rights
anymore," he said. "We defense lawyers will be -- we already are -- in a
hopeless situation."

(source: Japan Times)