A teacher at a private high school in Kawasaki was surprised earlier this year to find that two-thirds of his social science class had negative views concerning defendants' right to silence during criminal trials.

"I presented them a newspaper story about the death sentence handed to the suspect in the 1998 curry poisoning case in Wakayama, along with a critic's comments in the newspaper condemning her for remaining silent," remarked Hiroshi Watanabe of Daini High School, which is affiliated with Hosei University.

Most of his students agreed with the critic.