Staff writer

A quarter-century after Etsuko Yamada made what many believe was a false confession to murdering a child, the Osaka High Court will hand down its second ruling in the Kabutoyama case next week.

Yamada was 22 in 1974 when she was charged with slaying a child whose body was found in a septic tank on the property of Kabutoyama Gakuen, a school for mentally disabled children in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, where she was employed.

The Kobe District Court found her not guilty in 1985, but prosecutors appealed the ruling. The Osaka High Court then turned the case back to the district court, which again acquitted her in 1998, saying her confession was "unnatural, illogical and inexplicable."

But once again, prosecutors appealed the case and now await the high court ruling expected Wednesday.

Sumio Hamada, a professor of psychology at Hanazono University in Kyoto and a member of Yamada's defense team, said the woman made a false confession in despair after being told by investigators that her father hinted she was involved in the slaying.

Yamada attempted to hang herself with a bra strap in a detention cell after making her confession, Hamada said, and left a suicide note proclaiming her innocence.

"Even if there is no torture, we can imagine how tough the situation could be for those falsely charged," Hamada told a recent symposium on how innocent people end up confessing to crimes they never committed.

Suspects can be held in custody for up to 23 days, he said, and are subjected to harsh physical and mental conditions.

Surrounded by hostile interrogators, suspects face hours of tough questioning. They have no freedom in detention facilities and are treated and scorned as criminals, Hamada said.

Those who are falsely charged try hard to prove their innocence only to find no one believing them, he said, adding that they have no idea when their anxiety will end.

The psychologist compared their mental state to a scale balancing the weight of expected penalties if they are found guilty on one side and their continued attempts to claim innocence on the other.

"Those who are falsely charged cannot imagine the possible punishment they face, even if they can understand it logically," Hamada said.

Lawyer Shojiro Goto, who also spoke at the gathering organized by Appuyer, a volunteer group that supports children, has dealt with a number of falsely charged defendants.

Suspects tend to give false confessions when they are presented with what seems to be concrete evidence or when their alibi is rejected, said the 75-year-old lawyer, who won a 1992 Tokyo Bar Association Award for his human rights activities.

Goto pointed to illegal investigation tactics in a 1997 Kobe murder case, in which a 14-year-old boy was convicted in the murder of a 10-year-old boy who was decapitated and whose head was placed in front of a junior high school gate.

He said the teen may have been falsely charged, claiming that many reasonable doubts surfaced in the course of the investigation.

Goto alleged that investigative authorities used illegal means to gain the suspect's confession.

The juvenile inquiry, presided by Judge Yasuhiro Igaki at the Kobe Family Court in October 1997, acknowledged the illegal actions by police and excluded the confession from evidence.

In a desperate attempt to obtain an arrest warrant, investigators falsely told the young suspect that the handwriting used in a letter sent to the local newspaper and another stuck in the victim's mouth were identified as his, the court ruled. But in fact, police had been unable to identify the writer.

The judge did, however, accept as evidence a confession obtained by prosecutors, as they informed the boy ahead of questioning of his right not to respond to their inquiries.

"How could a 14-year-old understand the difference between questioning by police officers and by prosectors?" Goto asked, adding that the confession was taken by prosecutors immediately after the boy confessed to police.

Last October, Goto and two other lawyers filed a complaint with the Osaka High Public Prosecutor's Office against investigative authorities involved in the boy's questioning for alleged abuse of power.

As they have seen no progress on the complaint, the lawyers were expected to lodge a request Friday with the Kobe District Public Prosecutor's Office for a speedy investigation.

Goto said the Kobe case in some ways resembles the Matsukawa case of 1947, in which 20 labor union leaders were accused of conspiring to blow up a train amid a labor struggle but were later found not guilty.

In the Matsukawa case, investigative authorities coerced a 19-year-old into making a false confession by falsely telling him that his trusted grandmother had broken his alibi.

"What is most dangerous is that people tend to believe police act against bad guys and they never do any wrong," Goto said.

He said people must use their imaginations to understand how suspects in custody can be driven to make false confessions.

If the judges use their imaginations in the same way, Hamada said, "the truth will prevail" in the scheduled ruling on the Kabutoyama case.