A court ruling last fall changed a man's life. After Hiroshi Yanagihara was found guilty of rape in Toyama Prefecture and served about two years in prison, the Toyama District Court's Takaoka Branch officially found him not guilty.
In a rarity, the prosecutors, the court and the defense were on the same page: Yanagihara's confession had been coerced. Another man was charged with the crimes. But another feature of the retrial was that the court, although it cleared the defendant, refused his counsel's demand to question the investigators who forced the confession.
According to Kyohei Imai, one of the writers for the new magazine Enzai File (Falsely Accused File), the Toyama miscarriage of justice is only the tip of the iceberg.