Two men, one of them a former gangster, were found to have intimidated lay judges in the trial of a senior member of a Fukuoka Prefecture-based crime syndicate. The incident has disrupted the judicial process, with the resignation of the lay judges from the trial and cancelation of the scheduled ruling. The authorities should do their utmost to ensure the safety of lay judges, as it is a cornerstone of the system begun seven years ago.
In the trial, Kosuke Hata of the Kudo-kai underworld organization is charged with attempted murder. Just after his first hearing was held in May at the Kokura branch of the Fukuoka District Court in Kitakyushu, the two men allegedly approached two of the six lay judges involved in the trial on a street near the court and said to them such things as, "The sentence has already been decided in a way, right?" "We remember your faces" and "Thank you in advance."
After confirming the event took place, the court branch canceled the session to hand down the ruling, which had been scheduled for mid-May. In early June, the court dismissed four of the six lay judges who had asked to be excused. In mid-July, it decided to have the case tried by professional judges alone, based on a request from the prosecution. Both the prosecution and the court determined that continuing the lay judge trial would have exposed the lay judges to the risk of harm by members of the crime syndicate.