It took nearly 44 years for Iwao Hakamata, who was found guilty over a 1966 murder case, and his defense team to get a ruling for a retrial over a death penalty verdict finalized in 1980 — the only way for a convicted individual to be exonerated.
During the course of those years, more than 600 pieces of evidence were disclosed by prosecutors during court proceedings, some of which were crucial and ultimately led the court to grant him a retrial.
But even after the Shizuoka District Court ordered a retrial for the case in 2014 — which allowed Hakamata to be freed for the first time in nearly 50 years — it took an astonishing 9½ years for it to actually happen.
Tadahiko Sakaguchi, vice president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, blamed this on the defense team’s extremely limited access to evidence and prosecutors’ right to appeal a court’s decision for a retrial.
“The Hakamata case revealed the deficiency of the retrial system,” Sakaguchi said in an interview earlier this month. “That’s why it took so many years since the (murder) took place, and decades before key pieces of evidence were shared with his lawyers. It’s a typical case.”
The case centers on the fatal stabbings of an executive of a miso-maker in Shizuoka Prefecture, his wife and their teenage children at their home on June 30, 1966, before the house was set on fire.
Hakamata, who was a professional boxer, was arrested a few months later. He was sentenced to death in 1968.
Although he confessed to the murders during interrogation, he claimed the confession was coerced, and pleaded his innocence throughout his trial. His defense team filed for a retrial four months after his death sentence was finalized in 1980.
During court proceedings in December 2010 to hear the application for the retrial, prosecutors disclosed photos of five pieces of bloodstained clothes found in a miso barrel allegedly worn by the perpetrator when the crime was committed. Those pieces of evidence were not adduced in the district, high and supreme courts that convicted Hakamata.
“It took 44 years for such pieces of evidence to be disclosed in 2010 since the murder occurred ... that itself shows that there are no clear rules for disclosing evidence,” said Sakaguchi.
Because there are no rules for this, it’s up to judges to decide whether to order prosecutors to disclose the evidence or not, which could prolong the back and forth between the judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers, he said.
The bar federation is calling on lawmakers to revise the retrial system stipulated in the criminal procedure law so that prosecutors will be obliged to disclose during retrial proceedings evidence not submitted to court in the initial trial.
“It’s drafted on the premise that there would be no human error in the rulings, which is an outdated way of thinking,” Sakaguchi said of the criminal procedure law. “We’re not saying every ruling is wrong. We’re saying we need a system in which when there is a wrongful ruling, it can be rectified.”
For Sakaguchi, it starts with defense lawyers having access to the evidence that prosecutors have in their possession.
And then there is the other factor behind the long wait — prosecutors’ right to appeal a court decision to reopen a case.
When the Shizuoka District Court ordered Hakamata’s case to be reopened in 2014, prosecutors immediately appealed the decision to a higher court. The appeal went to the high court and then to the Supreme Court, which ordered the high court to review the district court decision for the retrial a second time.
After nine years, the Tokyo High Court on March 13, 2023, rejected the prosecutors’ appeal to ditch the retrial and ordered the case to be reopened at the Shizuoka District Court. The retrial decision was finalized only after prosecutors decided not to appeal.
At last, the court began Hakamata's retrial last October. It will hand down its ruling on Thursday.
“In Japan, the procedure to start a retrial takes a significant amount of time because prosecutors are allowed to appeal the decision,” said Sakaguchi. “That’s the case for the Hakamata trial and other cases seeking a retrial because prosecutors appeal the decision again and again.”
A 1967 murder-robbery case referred to as the “Fukawa Incident” — over which two men were sentenced to life in prison, finalized in 1978 — is another example of a prolonged journey toward a retrial.
The two men sought a retrial in 1983, but partly because prosecutors appealed, it took the duo more than 27 years to receive exoneration.
Other jurisdictions that have revised their judicial systems following cases of wrongful conviction largely focused on allowing defense lawyers better access to evidence and the introduction of an official organization that looks into retrial cases.
Taiwan and South Korea had a retrial system similar to Japan because they were under Japanese colonial rule before and during World War II. Both have revised their retrial system in the past decade or two to align with global standards.
But for Japan, nothing has changed.
“In Japan, one of the reasons is because the Justice Ministry and the Public Prosecutors Office have strongly opposed (any revision of the existing system),” Sakaguchi said.
He is hoping that a cross-party group of lawmakers formed in March seeking to revise the retrial system as well as Hakamata's case will add further momentum to such efforts. While there were only 134 lawmakers in the group when it was formed in March, membership has now grown to about 350.
That is what Hakamata’s older sister Hideko has been lobbying for.
“(Wrongful conviction) is the largest human rights violation by the government ... to detain a person for such a long time,” Sakaguchi said. “But even if he is exonerated, he won’t be able to get his life back.
“What Hideko wants to do is to create a system to make sure no one else would ever go through the tragedy of what her brother did.”
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