c-square wrote:I don't really know anything about the Japanese justice system, so I'm quite curious. What do you mean "their take on utilizing citizens for juries"? Is it different than how other countries "utilize" their citizens for juries?
Hadaa already covered the lay judge system, so I won't go into that much. I'm also not going to go into unnecessary detail here (hopefully), so if any further clarifications are necessary, let me know. For now, I'll just focus on an overview.
Firstly, prosecutors in Japan have far too much power. No justice system is perfect, but the way their penal system there is designed appears to have little to do with the truth and more to do with getting convictions. There's a joke in law circles that, in some countries, the prosecutor is more powerful than "god". Japan is frequently cited.
Japan only re-introduced "jury" trials a few years ago. To get a jury trial before the practice was abolished in Japan many, many ages ago (over a half-century), you had to forfeit your right to appeal unless I'm mistaken. I have a lot of issues with this, but... let's move on.
Here is a simple, unquestioned matter of fact about the Japanese justice system: You are presumed guilty until proven innocent. This certainly happens everywhere in the world, there's no question about it (though on what scale is up for debate). The difference being that the conviction rate in Japan is upwards of 99.9% last I checked. This leaves us to believe that either they are absurdly effective at their job and are almost entirely without error, or... the system is designed to put people away, guilty or not. Yes, the prosecution could just proceed with cases that are guaranteed to succeed, but as you'll see below, that is not a very sufficient explanation.
How is it that the Japanese prosecutors are able to get so many convictions? Well, let us start by mentioning that in quite a few countries (we'll use the US as an example), you can only be held without charge for somewhere between one to three days, generally speaking. How would you feel about being held for nearly a month
without ever being officially charged with a crime? Because in Japan, that's exactly what they can
legally do.
The "limit" is generally twenty eight days of confinement solely out of being arrested. That's right--for a month, you can be kept in prison without ever having been charged with a crime. The prosecutor has to be consulted early on in the detention period, but from there, it is legal to hold for a little over a week. From there, extensions are granted (I believe I read) in nearly 100% of all cases. All the prosecutor must do is request for further time to "gather evidence" and you're in for the long haul.
All of this isn't even for bail where it's been set and the accused, if they do not make it, waits for trial in prison. This is you being arrested, whether you are guilty or not really doesn't matter. When you are in jail for a month, imagine the complications that can arise. There are a great many horror stories involving this--people being jailed and losing their jobs and having no income as a result, and having no means on which to make a living when they are finally released. Losing property and such after that is not an uncommon occurrence whatsoever.
Back on track: The Japanese police are not interested in checking out leads. What they want is confessions, which is understandable I'm sure. Most police do want to accept that their initial hunches are correct, and fortunately, most places in the world, they don't get false confessions as often as they do in Japan. Due to the seemingly indefinite detention period, most people want to get out as soon as possible, and signing a confession is sometimes better than waiting to lose everything on the outside as you sit in a cell for a month, constantly badgered by detectives. The police interrogate as much as possible in order to get confessions out of those arrested, and people will break. Sure, in most places, people can handle three days of interrogation. But, how about almost thirty? For every accepted confession, we get another entrant contributing to that 99.9% conviction record.
This is far from the only issue I have, and yes, most of this post is just my take as a student of global law. Mid last year, Japan
FINALLY did away with their statute of limitations on
murder. For ages, all you had to do was kill someone, wait out the statute, and you were in the clear to do as you wished. Even beyond all this, the treatment for prisoners (
especially foreigners) in Japan in general is pretty terrible, which may be difficult for some to hear, but what do you expect when you put people away for a month on suspicion alone? Many foreigners in Japan tend to not understand how their system works. Thus, they think they are in for a fair trial when really they are actually seen as defiant and often receive the maximum sentences with very, very inefficient representation. A certain amount of xenophobia is expected, but due to a number of factors (language barrier included), you should really avoid being suspected of committing a crime in Japan. (Yeah, notice I said "suspected of", because that's enough)
In short: The Japanese justice system really isn't designed to give anyone a fair fight or seek out the truth or even put bad people behind bars. What it does is test the mettle of people in an unfathomable situation that no one longs to be in. By putting people through the ringer like this, you aren't testing their guilt but instead their disposition. I mean, how many people do you think could actually last through something like that? I'd say the amount that can't is about... I dunno, 99.9%?
Lastly:
Yes, there are a great many counterexamples of the justice system failing, from all over the world. Justice systems fail because they are operated by people--people that are, by nature, prone to imperfection. Yet, those occurrences are often because there was a lack of oversight. Here, that lack of oversight is not just encouraged but openly endorsed. In the US and many other countries, we call it a miscarriage of justice. In Japan, it
is justice.
- Get your Detective Conan bobbleheads today! - 
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..... most of the time.. kogoro deductions is wrong!
hope they will!!
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