Was Japan’s Lizzie Borden lucky?

POLICE BLOTTER CASES seldom get covered on this site, but yesterday’s verdict in a Tokyo murder trial brings up some aspects of the criminal justice system that the Japanese media don’t seem to be addressing.

Here are the facts, in brief:

Shortly after getting married in March 2003, Mihashi Yusuke, an employee of a securities firm, began beating his wife. The beatings were severe enough that she was admitted to a shelter for domestic violence victims with a broken nose and a bruised face in June 2006. She returned to her husband a month later.

Mihashi Kaori (photo) eventually asked for a divorce, but her husband refused to grant one on her terms. Her lawyers also allege that Mr. Mihashi had taken nude photographs of his wife and threatened to make them public if she insisted on a divorce.

On 12 December 2006, Mrs. Mihashi killed her husband by hitting him in the head with a wine bottle when he was asleep. The evidence showed that she kept whacking him in the head with the bottle just to make sure–an autopsy revealed 10 separate head wounds. She then used a saw to cut his body into five pieces in their Shibuya apartment and hid the pieces in Tokyo.

Mrs. Mihashi was given a psychiatric evaluation by two doctors, one selected by the defense attorneys and the other selected by the prosecutors. In their judgment, the defendant was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome and therefore not criminally responsible for her acts.

Presiding Judge Kawamoto Masaya did not agree, however. Here’s what he said:

Her husband physically abused her soon after they were married, and she began hallucinating. The content of the psychiatric evaluation is reliable…it can be said that her married life was a (living) hell, she felt despair, and on the spur of the moment, she was seized by a homicidal intent. Her psychiatric problems, however, did not create a problem with her capacity to assume responsibility (for her act).

He continued:

She was fully capable of understanding her responsibility. She committed a brutal act by persistently and repeatedly striking her husband in the head, cutting his body into five pieces, and disposing of it. She also trampled on the emotions of her husband’s parents, who were concerned about the safety of their son, by sending them an e-mail that led them to believe he was alive.

Mrs. Mihashi impersonated her husband and sent a text message to her father-in-law on his cell phone telling him not to worry for the recent lack of communication.

The judge also said:

Her motive for murder is understandable, but she repeatedly took several rational steps to conceal what she had done and prevent the discovery (of the crime). These included buying a saw, cutting up the body, and disposing of it.

Cultural note: Cutting up a body and disposing of it is a crime in Japan, and Mrs. Mihashi was charged with that offense in addition to murder.

Judge Kawasaki sentenced her to 15 years in jail. The prosecutors asked for 20, and they’re not certain yet whether they will appeal for a longer sentence.

Mrs. Mihashi’s defense attorney was not pleased:

This contravenes the Supreme Court ruling that psychiatric evaluations of a defendant’s competency should be respected, and is (therefore) unfair.

When asked whether she would file an appeal, he said:

I think she should, but (Mrs. Mihashi) has said she will not appeal. I’ll discuss it with her again.

Mihashi Yusuke’s parents, however, claim that their son was not a wife-beater. They also complained about media coverage of the case that they thought focused excessively on their son’s behavior. (Sound familiar?)

All the information available to us is second- or third-hand, filtered through the media and its infotainment agenda, so it’s impossible for any of us to have an informed opinion. That’s not the reason I bring up the case here, however.

In May 2009–little more than a year from now–Japan’s legal system will undergo a revolution. Trials are currently adjudicated by a panel consisting of three judges. Starting next year, that panel will be expanded to include six citizen judges serving on a case-by-case basis. The presiding judge will be responsible for determining the sentence.

Decisions will be made by majority vote, so citizens can overrule the judges. The judges will be able to overrule the citizens only when all six citizens vote to convict and all three judges vote not guilty. (Here’s a previous post about this with plenty of links.)

Yesterday’s verdict makes me wonder:

• Would the citizens be more likely to accept the psychiatric evaluation in Mrs. Mihashi’s case than were the judges?
• Would a citizen panel with more women than men tend to sympathize with defendants such as Mrs. Mihashi? How would a citizen panel with more men behave?

The Japanese public supports the death penalty by an overwhelming margin. (Surveys usually find support to be more than 70%; the previous post on the judicial system links to an article citing a survey showing 80% support.)

• Would a citizen panel that voted to convict a defendant of murder push the judges to impose a sentence tougher than 15 years? Will the change in the system lead to more executions?

The Japanese have traditionally been more deferential to authority than people in other countries, and some think the members of a lay citizen panel would tend to defer to the judges. Twenty years ago, I would have agreed. But Japanese society has changed so much since then that I’m not sure it’s safe to make that assumption today.

That opinion also fails to take into consideration what might happen once citizens on the panel begin to realize they can exercise real power.

The new legal system is just one of several changes that will transform Japanese society in the coming years. As is usually the case, that transformation will be largely sotto voce. How those changes will reconfigure the life of the nation is anyone’s guess.

Note: Here’s an English language account by the Japan Times, noteworthy if only for all the information it leaves out.

More on the voting age in Japan

THE PREVIOUS POST reports on the debate within Japan about lowering the voting age from 20 to 18 for national referendums on Constitutional amendments. The Democratic Party of Japan, the primary opposition party, pushed for that change in the bill eventually passed by the Diet, and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan compromised on the condition that a study be conducted about the effect it would have on other laws.

According to one report, the DPJ’s position was that 18- and 19-year-olds should be enfranchised for a national referendum because a Constitutional amendment would have a greater effect on their lives than an ordinary election.

Now comes word just yesterday from the Sankei Shimbun that the officers of a DPJ committee for promoting political reform will set up a subcommittee to mull the idea of setting 18 as the age for the right to vote in all elections in Japan, as well as using the Internet in elections and ending the current ban on door-to-door election canvassing. (The latter is prohibited to prevent vote buying.)

Why the party changed its mind on the voting age (if that’s what this represents), is not known, but there are two possible reasons. The first would be to bring Japanese practices in alignment with those in other countries. That’s an argument many Japanese find intrinsically appealing. The other is that the party, with its center-left tendencies, might hope it would gain an electoral advantage from teenaged voters. (It didn’t work out that way for the Democrats in American national elections when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18, however.)

Whatever the reason, the move by the DPJ demonstrates once again that whenever any political party anywhere says, “Just this once, and just for this purpose,” it’s safe to assume it won’t be long before they’re touting it as a universal principle.

Endnote: The party subcommittee will be chaired by Noda Yoshihiko, who has an interesting background. He was graduated from the elite Waseda University, and one of his first jobs was as an inspector for a municipal gas company. He is known as one of the most persuasive (and long-winded) speechmakers in the party.

Mr. Noda also takes an interest in science and technology, and is a member of the party’s “working team” to examine the military uses of outer space. He favors a change in the government’s Constitutional interpretation that outer space cannot be used for defensive purposes, placing him in his party’s hawkish wing.

The law of unintended consequences

THE HEADLINE ON THIS KYODO REPORT is incorrect. It reads, “Hatoyama starts debate on lowering legal age”.

Here’s the first sentence:

Justice Minister Hatoyama Kunio told an advisory board Wednesday to study the possibility of legally lowering the age of adulthood from 20 to 18.

It’s incorrect in this sense: the debate actually started last May, when the Abe administration passed a law defining the conditions for a national referendum to amend the Constitution, should one be necessary.

A voting age of 18 was incorporated into that bill at the insistence of the Democratic Party of Japan, the country’s primary opposition party.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party didn’t like the idea–and still doesn’t–but they compromised to get the legislation passed. The DPJ had a laundry list of more proposed additions, but the LDP thought they weren’t essential to the intent of the legislation and used its majority to enact the bill. Naturally, the English-language media pitched the story this way: “LDP Rams Bill Through Diet”.

As the story notes, the provisions of the bill have ramifications that extend beyond national referendums, including the drinking age and the smoking age. It fails to note, however, that they also affect other matters, such as the age for assuming legal responsibility for contracts. In fact, several hundred laws and regulations will now have to be reexamined.

Is lowering the age of adulthood a good idea? The Kyodo article quoted a doctor as suggesting the drinking age should be raised to 22. Indeed, there has been a growing awareness in America lately that for many, childhood is being extended and adulthood deferred or avoided altogether. (See here, for example, or the contrasting reviews of the book, The Death of the Grown-Up, one by the NYT, and the other by Michelle Malkin. Enterprising Googlers will find many more opinions and articles.)

Some would entertain the idea of raising the age of adulthood even higher than 22, but the necessity for most people to have full-time employment by that age makes the suggestion both impractical and unfair.

Regardless of where one stands on the issue, it is regrettable that a measure with such far-reaching consequences was adopted as part of a back-room political deal to pass legislation, without public debate or a preliminary examination of its potential effects.

But then, isn’t one sign of adulthood the awareness of the consequences of one’s actions and the willingness to take responsibility for them?

UPDATE: Here’s a more detailed look at the story by the Yomiuri.

Still, the issue has turned out to be needlessly confusing. Try this:

If the Civil Code is not revised and the referendum law’s stipulation setting the age at 18 goes into effect, people at 18 and 19 will be allowed to vote on constitutional amendments, but will not have the right to make binding contracts and take other legal steps.

And compare it to this:

In March last year, the ruling parties reached a compromise with the DPJ and agreed to change the age limit in the referendum law to 18. But the law has a clause that the age limit in a national referendum can be maintained at 20 until the legal adulthood age in other laws is lowered to 18. Thus if the adulthood age in the Civil Code is not lowered, there will be no problem in implementing the national referendum law.

This has become much too complicated for an issue of such importance.

The secret heartbreak of enuresis

COULD SOMEONE DO THE KID A FAVOR and change his diapers?

This open season on gaijin, as well as on terrorists and carriers of contagious diseases (which somehow also means the gaijin), has gone beyond fomenting the image that non-Japanese are merely untrustworthy. It has created policy creep. Gaijin-hunters in their zeal are stretching or breaking established laws.

And put a bib on him while you’re at it:

Sure, policymakers are treating non-Japanese residents as criminals, terrorists, and filth columnists of disease and disorder — through fingerprinting on arrival, gaijin-house ID checkpoints, anonymous “snitch sites” (ZG, March 30, 2004), DNA databases (ZG, Jan. 13, 2004), IC chips in gaijin cards (ZG, Nov. 22, 2005) and now dragnets through hotels and paychecks.

Don’t forget the pacifier. Anything to keep him from making suggestions such as this one:

Japan needs more lawyers, or at least more lawyerly types.

I’m going to need a diaper if he keeps coming up with ideas like that.

One would have hoped that the author of the article would have tried to examine all the aspects of his argument before putting it in writing , but alas…

But in practice, the policy stretch has already begun. For example, Regular Permanent Resident immigrants — who have no visa restrictions placed on their employment and cannot possibly “overstay” — must also be reported.

One resident of the town in which I live is a self-employed English teacher from Morocco. I used to run into him at a particular bar every once in a while. He went for the specific purpose of getting drunk and picking fights with people–both verbal and physical. He was married at the time to a Japanese woman and has a permanent resident’s visa.

They eventually got divorced, but his visa allows him to stay in Japan. He returned briefly to Morocco and came back with a new Moroccan wife. He has since gotten religion again, stopped drinking, and started praying five times a day.

Considering this man’s inability to control his anger and his renewed interest in Islam, you can bet this gaijin is glad the police will keep tabs on people with a permanent resident’s visa.

The author of this article seems to be auditioning for the role of Spotless Gaijin Avenger. Get someone to illustrate it, and it would make a dandy Marvel comic.

Well, it’s time for the real point of the exercise. Let’s give him what he wants. All together now…

“Debito! (sigh) Our hero!”

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so harsh. Without the Caped Crusader looking after our interests, we all would be utterly at the mercy of this racist and fascist police state.

Japan’s constitutional yoga

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace.

SO SANG JOHN LENNON more than 35 years ago, and while those who have to deal with the world the way it is would find it difficult to conjure up that vision in their imagination, we shouldn’t be as hard on him as some commentators on the Right have been over the past few years. Not only was he a product of the times, but by the time he wrote those lines, Lennon’s enormous celebrity had swollen his head to such an extent his eyes were no longer in focus.

He’s not the only one who’s been bested by his own inflated ideals over the years. Take this, for example:

We have determined to preserve our security and existence, trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world.

That hopeful expression of trust is from the Preface to Japan’s Constitution. It’s probably the only constitution of a free market democracy that contains the expression “peace-loving peoples”. To show how serious they were about this particular fantasy, the people who wrote the Constitution continued in this vein:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

That, of course is the Constitution’s famous (or infamous) Article 9. Political leaders who have to deal with the real world can’t spare the time for imagining that scenario—taking it seriously would be fatal–but perhaps we shouldn’t be as hard on the authors as some commentators on the Right have been. Not only were these sentences a product of the times, but by the time the authors wrote those lines, after 12 straight years in control of America’s Executive and Legislative branches, FDR’s New Dealers had become so intoxicated by success their eyes were no longer in focus.

Unfortunately, they were too busy using their imagination to foresee the aggressive nationalism of 21st century China, which combines the worst aspects of Marxism, capitalism, and Manifest Destiny, or the malignant growth of 21st century North Korea, which combines the worst aspects of Stalinism, pure land Koreanism, and oddball religious cults.

What is a country to do? In Japan’s case, they’ve turned to the practice of constitutional yoga, twisting the text into political asanas to create interpretive results that don’t seem possible at first, or even second, glance.

Commentary on Japan’s constitution

WRITING IN Contentions, the blog of the magazine Commentary, Gordon Chang concluded the following about the moves underway in Japan to amend the Constitution:

The way to end, finally, the long aftermath of World War II in Asia is for the Japanese to amend their constitution—and subsequently to adhere to it.

I agree completely with Mr. Chang, but I arrived at my conclusion coming from the opposite direction. Ordinarily, the direction wouldn’t matter if the destination were the same, but Mr. Chang’s professional specialties are China and North Korea, and in this instance I’m afraid he’s examining the issue through the wrong end of the telescope. Approaching this issue from the proper perspective is critical because doing otherwise might be a distraction from the real issues at stake.

Eyes wide shut: The media and the Abe-Bush press conference

BEFORE HIS VISIT to the United States this weekend, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a CNN interviewer that he thought North Korea’s Kim Jong-il is “a person who is capable of rational thinking”. He added, “I believe that the direction North Korea is headed is wrong.”

In their story, the Associated Press noted, “Abe’s aides could not be immediately reached to confirm his comments.”

Forging boldly ahead with their coverage of the vital issues of the day, the AP referred to the joint Abe-Bush press conference this weekend in the U.S. as a “show of friendship”. They reported that President Bush told Shinzo he “married well”, and invited him down to the ranch. In return, Prime Minister Abe said that he and his wife and George and Laura had a very wondsdfffffffffhtujoi

Oops, sorry about that. I fell asleep and briefly passed out on the keyboard.

After staring at all that irrelevancy, can you blame me? Besides, I nodded off for just a few seconds, but the entire American news media, including CNN and the AP with their millions of dollars in resources and equipment, sat stupefied while one of the biggest stories of the postwar Japan-US relationship sailed over their heads. Yet the AP thinks it’s necessary to confirm that Mr. Abe believes North Korea is headed in the wrong direction?

Why do they have to confirm what every sentient being on the planet knows except some addled South Koreans? And what difference does it make? Why are they even bothering?

Meanwhile, as they’re working the phones, their sources, and shoe leather, they’ve missed the bigger story staring them in the face. In the past two days, Prime Minister Abe and the government of Japan just issued its Declaration of Independence from the legacy of World War II, and in effect told Mike Honda, the U.S. Congress, and the rest of East Asia that if they don’t like it, they can take a hike. But the AP is spending its time trying to confirm that Prime Minister Abe thinks Kim Jong-il is rational.

Perhaps Shinzo should confirm with George whether the President thinks the AP is rational.

Japan’s Prime Minister Abe: Moving from one success to another

While the media and the parrot blogs focus on the superficial instead of the substantial, misleading the public about polls while misinterpreting policy, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe keeps moving from one success to another.

And though the commentariat quickly pounced on the Abe Cabinet’s slide from an unsustainably high 70% approval rating immediately after taking office to Japan’s more usual 40% level, mum’s the word now that the Cabinet’s numbers have rebounded. That’s the media’s usual response when the beast it flogs refuses to die.

Maintaining his sang-froid, the prime minister continued the smooth implementation of his policies since taking office by putting two more feathers in his cap last week.

Will Japanese citizens take the law into their own hands?

With little fanfare and even less public debate, the Japanese Diet passed a bill a few years ago that reformed the nation’s criminal court system by requiring citizens to serve as lay judges on panels and hand down verdicts. Perhaps only in Japan could a measure that will so drastically alter a public institution and the people’s interaction with it go into effect with so little citizen input.

Here’s what will happen: Three-judge panels settle criminal cases in Japan today. There are no juries. When the new law takes effect in 2009, six citizen lay judges will serve with the three judges on the panel on a case-by-case basis to render verdicts. The head judge will later determine the sentence.

This will place an unprecedented amount of power in the hands of Japanese citizens. Indeed, though the ideal is for the nine-person panel to reach a consensus, decisions will be made by majority vote, and citizens can clearly overrule the judges. (Judges will be able to overrule the citizens only when all six citizens vote to convict and all three judges vote not guilty.) Yet there has been almost no public discussion of this step, which truly deserves to be called revolutionary.

This new system is likely to cause the following changes.