Agroup of 20 citizens who served as lay judges submitted a petition in mid-February to Justice Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki calling for an immediate halt to capital punishment and greater disclosure of information on various matters related to executions. Among them were three former lay judges who took part in writing rulings that imposed death sentences on defendants. Tanigaki should squarely respond to the petition because the citizens who submitted the petition felt agony from the possibility of having to hand down a death sentence or from the actual experience of having given such a sentence.
Former lay judge Masayoshi Taguchi, who headed the group, said that some of the members who handed down death sentences are "feeling guilty that they will sooner or later become 'indirect murderers' of human beings."
In lay judge trials, 20 defendants were given death sentences by the end of 2013 and the sentences for four of them have been finalized. It is becoming a real possibility that defendants who underwent lay judge trials will be executed, thus increasing the psychological and moral dilemma placed on lay judges who participated in the trials.