Editorials Jun 4, 2019
Efforts to eliminate the risk of false charges and convictions need to continue even after the full implementation of the 2016 amendments.
Efforts to eliminate the risk of false charges and convictions need to continue even after the full implementation of the 2016 amendments.
It is not enough to overturn a wrongful conviction of innocent persons. The process that result in falsely convicting them of crimes they did not commit must be scrutinized.
Revisions to three laws are ostensibly aimed at reducing the prevalence of false charges in criminal cases but they could have the opposite effect.
To eliminate the chance of wrongful convictions based on false confessions, interrogations for all crimes should be recorded in their entirety.
Investigators should never try to extract a confession from a suspect in a manner that conforms to a predetermined scenario. Yet false charges based on coerced false confessions happen time and again.
The Diet should scrutinize whether the proposed revision to the criminal procedure law contributes to eliminating false charges and wrongful convictions.
The biggest problem with plea bargaining, which a special legislative panel has recommended introducing into Japan's criminal investigative process, is the possibility that a suspect will make false confessions for a lesser punishment or wrongly implicate a person who has nothing to do with ...
A Justice Ministry legislative proposal for dealing with criminal investigations and trials evades the duty of electronically recording all interrogations of criminal suspects while broadening the range of tools that investigators may use.