October 01, 2024
World’s longest-serving death row inmate acquitted after 46 years
Iwao Hakamada, 88, was acquitted last week after spending 46 years on death row for four murders he did not commit.
Accused of a quadruple murder in 1996, the former professional boxer was sentenced to death on September 11, 1968, in the slaying of his boss, his bosses wife, and their children- a set of murders that came to be known as the Hakamada Incident.
In 1966, a fire engulfed the home of a miso paste company manager, killing the executive, as well as his wife and children.
At the time, Hakamada, who was 30 years old, and live-in employee at the miso processing plant, helped put out the fires.
When the flames were extinguished, Hakamada’s boss, wife, and teenage children, were found stabbed to death on the floor, and ¥200,000 was missing from the home. Today ¥200,000 is around $1,406, around the value of $13,562 in 1966.
Two months later, police claimed they found tiny amounts of gasoline and blood on a pair of Hakamada’s pajamas, and claimed it was evidence that proved he was the killer. He was arrested and charged with arson and murder.
Hakamada was interrogated from 18 August to 9 September 1966, where he says police beat him with both sticks and their own hands and feet, refused to let him use the bathroom, deprived him of sleep, and interrogated him for around 12 – 14 hours each day. Police records show Hakamada endured 240 hours of interrogation in 20 days.
After enduring 20 days of lengthy interrogation, he gave in and confessed, despite his innocence.
In his own words, Hakamada said: “…one of the interrogators put my thumb onto an inkpad, drew it to the written confession record and ordered me, ‘write your name here!’, shouting at me, kicking me and wrenching my arm.”
He would later recant his confession and plead not guilty at trial.
More than a year after his arrest, investigators claimed to have discovered additional pieces of clothing, purportedly stained with Hakamada's blood, and produced them at trial. Police accused Hakamada of wearing these clothes during the murders, and hiding them in a tank of fermented soybean paste.
Tens of documents were purportedly signed by Hakamada, and at the initial trial by the Shizuoka District Court in 1968, a judge even voiced concerns that these confessions were not willingly signed by Hakamada.
Of the total 45 documents, only one was deemed admissible as evidence at trial. Shizuoka District Court judge, Kumamoto Norimichi, later said in 2007, that he did not feel Hakamada was guilty, but was unable to convince the other two judges in what was a majority vote. He confessed that the guilty sentence haunted him.
Norimichi Kumamoto, who was a junior judge at the initial trial, said in 2008: "My feelings about Mr. Hakamada remain the same- I believe he is innocent."
He revealed that he argued for acquittal, however, was outvoted and forced to write the death sentence order as part of his duties as a junior judge.
“I could not bear the burden of my conscience, so I resigned from being a judge … I felt very guilty myself,” Kumamoto said.
Those sentenced to death in Japan are under constant surveillance and placed in solitary confinement. They are not permitted to talk, move around their cell for extended periods, or make any noise. They are only allowed to be visited by Legal representatives and immediate family members under surveillance, many of whom do not visit due to shame.
Mail in and out of death row is censored.
Long periods of isolation and lack of mobility inevitably lead to deterioration in mental and physical health.
Inmates on death row are only notified a few hours in advance of their execution. The method of execution in Japan is hanging, and death row inmates are led blindfolded to a gallows room, where their hands and feet are bound.
Across the wall, or adjacent to the execution room, buttons are pressed by prison guards, which activate trap doors beneath death row inmates.
The majority of the Japanese public continue to support the death sentence.
Iwao Hakamada maintained his innocence the entire time he was on death row.
American boxer, Hurricane Carter, who was also wrongfully imprisoned for 20 years for murder, before being released following a petition of habeas corpus, lobbied for a retrial in Hakamada's case.
In the late 2000s, the clandestine inner-workings and dark underbelly of Japanese law enforcement was scrutinised. Confession-heavy convictions, lack of legal representation present during long, gruelling and inhumane interrogations, and the subsequent, often decades-long, stint on death row in isolation with the gallows ever-looming, were highlighted by media outlets around the globe.
After 27 years on death row, Hakamada's first appeal for retrial was denied by the Supreme Court. He filed for a second appeal in 2008.
The Times Herald reported in May 2008, that the physical evidence produced by police, the pants that replaced the pajamas, didn't even fit Hakamada when he attempted to put them on. Also, the murder weapon, a 4.8-inch blade fruit knife, which was supposed to have inflicted over 40 stab wounds across four victims, was not damaged in the way one would expect it to be.
The blood-stained clothing police officers claimed to have found hidden in a fermented soybean tank a year after the murders came into question. The simple fact that the clothing would have become so stained and dark that it would be impossible to see any blood stains with the naked eye came into question. The Defense said that all blood samples submitted into evidence did not match that of Hakamada, and that the clothing was not even in his size.
In 2014 Hakamada began serving his sentence at home, due to his old age and health.
The court suspended the death sentence when DNA analysis indicated police had fabricated the evidence and beaten a false confession out of Hakamada.
When informed by his lawyers that he was free, a tired Hakamada responded: "You lie. I'm finished."
Presiding judge in 2014, Hiroaki Murayama, said of Hakamada's freedom: "The possibility of his innocence has become clear to a respectable degree, and it is unbearably unjust to prolong the defendant's detention any further."
He was granted a retrial, which took up until 2023 to start, and 2024 for a verdict, in which the Shizuoka District Court concluded that the evidence against him used in his initial sentencing was faked.
Hakamada’s older sister, Hideko Hakamada, now 91, continued to support her brother while he was on death row, and now continues to support and care for him at her home.
November 19, 2024
