Japan began its first jury trial yesterday following legal reforms that aim to bring the judicial process closer to the people amid concerns about allowing jurors to hand down the death penalty.
In the first trial to employ six “lay judges,” a 72-year-old man is accused of stabbing to death a 66-year-old female South Korean neighbor.
The jurors, who were randomly selected from the pool of eligible voters, will be asked to decide not only the verdict but, if the man is convicted, also the sentence in the scheduled four-day case at the Tokyo District Court.
However, as a safeguard, at least one of three professional judges presiding over the trial must agree with the citizen-judges’ majority decisions.
A law passed in May paved the way for the reform, which seeks to give the public a greater role in a judicial process that has often been criticized as remote, complicated and out of touch with the public’s sense of justice.
The change, however, has sparked fierce criticism from some legal experts who argue that randomly selected citizens are not fit to make informed judgments in serious crime cases or decisions about a convict’s life and death.
Japan imposes the death penalty, but usually only for multiple murders. Last week three convicts were executed in Japanese prisons.
Critics also charge that prosecutors will be tempted to use graphic crime scene images as evidence to sway impressionable jurors.
Recent polls have shown that many members of the public are reluctant to be called up as jurors, which has now become a civic duty enforced with fines of up to ¥100,000 (US$1,000) for failure to show up.
Lay judges are also committed to a lifetime of secrecy on their closed-door deliberations, a vow of silence enforced by penalties of up to six months in prison or a ¥500,000 fine for violators.
Before the start of the murder trial, defense lawyer Shunji Date pledged to avoid legalistic jargon and “use language as simple as possible.”
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was