In December, a new law went into effect allowing victims of crimes and their families to participate in trial proceedings. Previously, victims were virtually shut out of criminal courts unless they were called on to provide testimony. Under the new law, they may sit next to prosecutors during trials, talk to the judge and even question the defendants themselves.

The law is controversial. Its proponents say that victims and their families should be given the right to face suspects in court and confront them with the results of their alleged crimes, while detractors claim that allowing victims to make statements during proceedings will prejudice judges and undermine the fundamental principle of a criminal trial, which is that the defendant is deemed innocent until proven guilty.

So far, the law's impact seems to be more cathartic than anything else. In a trial currently underway in Nagoya, three men are accused of picking up a 31-year-old woman at random in Aug. 2007 and then killing her. During one session, the mother of the victim gave testimony for two hours, during which time she showed judges family snapshots of her daughter and explained what a selfless individual she was. The prosecutors said that it was their idea to present the photo exhibition "in order to accurately show how the victim lived her life."