Death sentences¶

The vast majority of people sentenced to death have been convicted for murder.

A law on the participation of lay judges came into force in 2009. Since then, six regular citizens sit with three professional judges to determine the guilt and the sentence of people accused of murder and other serious offences. This reform has, for various reasons, led to a rise in the number of death sentence convictions.

In January 2020, the High Court commuted on appeal the sentence of a prisoner sentenced to death, “deeming him to have been in a state of diminished capacity due to a delusional disorder” at the time of the offence. This death sentence, handed down by lay judges in a lower court ruling, is the seventh of this type to be overturned on appeal since the introduction of this system.

Executions¶

Prisoners are informed of their execution on the very day it is to be carried out, in some cases upon waking up. Executions always take place in the morning around 8.30 a.m.

Close relatives and the media are informed once the sentence has been carried out. The United Nations Committee against Torture underlined that “refusing to provide convicted persons and family members advance notice of the date and time of execution is a clear human rights violation.” It causes needless psychological suffering.

No executions were recorded in 2020, for the first time since 2011.

Prisoners sentenced to death awaiting execution¶

The Japan Innocence & Death Penalty Information Center (JIADEP) reported that, in 2021, 26% of people facing the death penalty were over 70 years old and that two had been incarcerated for over 40 years. According to JIADEP, six prisoners sentenced to death were minors under the age of 20 at the time of the offence.¹ Five people were of Chinese nationality and one of Malaysian nationality. Foreign prisoners may receive support from their diplomatic representative. JIADEP indicates that, for Chinese nationals, the position that their country takes concerning the death sentence renders diplomatic support highly unlikely.

Japanese law states that people sentenced to death must be executed six months after sentencing at the latest. The length of the appeals process can explain the gap between principle and reality. In 2021, Amnesty International reported that 10 of the 120 people awaiting execution had not yet exhausted all their appeal rights. People sentenced to death are regularly executed without these having been fully explored.

Three prisoners sentenced to death died in detention in 2020.

Pardons and commutations¶

Commutations can be granted by the government or by the appeals courts.

The government grants pardons and sentence commutations based on the advice from the National Offenders Rehabilitation Commission. The condemned may send a request to this commission through the intermediary of the warden of their penal institution. In June 1975, Kenjiro I’s death sentence was reduced to life imprisonment. No commutations or pardons have been granted by the government since.

Seven sentence commutations have been granted by the appeals courts since the introduction of lay judges in 2009.

People sentenced to death may receive legal assistance from the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA).

Interrogations conducted in police custody can go on for several weeks and can lead to forced confessions. However, access to lawyers for defendants accused of capital crimes has, according to David T. Johnson, improved since the introduction of lay judges in 2009.

The defence of people sentenced to death is judged to be of poor quality, sometimes even deemed as “passive”. According to Johnson, this attitude of the defence solicitors is partly due to the poor remuneration they receive for criminal cases. They barely challenge prosecutors and do not ask the court to disclose evidence. In cases where prosecutors seek to use written statements instead of live testimony, many defence solicitors refrain from requesting that a witness testify in court. Moreover, they rarely recommend that their client exercise their right to remain silent. For some years, bar associations have given training to the solicitors of people facing the death sentence in order to improve their defence.

The visiting times are the same for solicitors and close relatives. The confidentiality of lawyer-client exchanges is no longer guaranteed between the Supreme Court’s confirmation of the sentence and the acceptance of any appeal application.

People sentenced to death cannot have any contact with others facing the same sentence or with other prisoners. Seven penal institutions have dedicated cells for those awaiting execution: Sapporo, Sendai, Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka. The Tokyo facility contains roughly half of these cells.

Accommodation. Prisoners sentenced to death remain in solitary confinement in cells measuring around five square metres (a little less than four tatami mats). Their windows are smaller than those found in normal cells and let very little natural light in. The field of vision is obstructed by bars and gratings. The cells are equipped with a sink, a commode and a desk. The prisoner is permitted to keep a limited number of personal items. Most facilities have neither heating nor an adequate ventilation system.
The cell is monitored round the clock on CCTV. The guards control the lights, which are turned on between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. and cannot be on outside these times. The FIDH reported that ”lighting may be dimmed at night but there is never complete darkness.”
According to former guard Toshio Sakamoto, “there is nothing for them to see out their window except the corridor. They are not permitted to speak to anyone, and about the only day-to-day variations they encounter are differences in the contents of their meals.”

Hygiene. Prisoners sentenced to death can shower three times a week in summer and twice a week the rest of the year. They are allowed no more than 15 minutes for a shower, including time spent undressing and getting dressed again. It is, in theory, possible to shower after exercising. In practice, the showers are not accessible every day.

Food. Prisoners sentenced to death receive three meals per day in their cells. These vary in both quality and quantity. The Japanese regulations state that “staple food is made up of 70 percent of rice and 30 percent of barley. The calorific value of staple food for convicts is graded according to individual work assignments. […] The calorific value of side dishes is fixed as 1,020 kcal regardless of individual work assignments.” The administration allocates a supplementary 60 yen (around $0.55) to special meals (birthdays and national holidays). An additional 250 yen (around $2.30) is allotted for New Year’s Day. The lack of fresh fruit and vegetables can lead to vitamin deficiencies.
Prisoners may buy food and essentials from the commissary, but the majority of them cannot afford it. Their families can, in theory, bring them food, however the FIDH noted in 2003 that the guards did not allow this.

Activities and work. Prisoners sentenced to death spend almost the whole day in their cells. They must remain seated and cannot move without the guards’ permission. From waking to the evening inspection, they may not speak, make any noise, walk around their cell or look around. They only leave in order to shower (15 minutes, two to three times a week), to exercise (30 minutes, two to three times a week) and to receive visitors. Outside of visits from their relatives and solicitors, they only have contact with prison guards. The designated concrete exercise area measures around 10m2. Prisoners cannot wear shoes and go out barefoot or in slippers. They can play with rubber balls. Prisoners sentenced to death do not have access to computers or printers, which are normally used to help build a defence and print out the necessary legal documents. They may not watch television or do any activities. They have the right to three books on the condition that the administration approves them. They can listen to the radio but are not permitted to choose the station.
People whose death sentences are under appeal work in the same conditions as other prisoners. These tasks may be in production (sewing, paper products, etc.) or in general prison maintenance work (cooking, cleaning, laundry). They can earn up to 5,000 yen (around $46) per month.

Discipline. The days of people sentenced to death follow the same structure as those of other prisoners. The disciplinary and security measures implemented are, as a general rule, extremely restrictive. Incarcerated people must conform to a certain way of walking, talking, eating, sitting and sleeping. Any breach in conduct is subject to sanctions.

People sentenced to death may be visited by a chaplain once a month. These visits are closely monitored by the administration. The FIDH reported that one religious visitor found herself barred from visiting prisoners sentenced to death after having publicly expressed anti-capital punishment views.

People sentenced to death are not permitted to make phone calls. They may send one letter of at most seven pages per day, whose contents are subject to censorship. Any portion of the letter which is deemed inappropriate is either rewritten by the prisoner or blacked out by prison officials. However, there is no limit on the number of letters the prisoner may receive. In principle, people sentenced to death may receive mail from any source. Supportive letters from the public are not delivered.

Prisoners can only receive visitors once a week, between 9am and 5pm and outside of meal times. Visits last for 20 minutes, taking place in a room of roughly 40m2, with a separation screen between the prisoner and his or her visitors. A guard is always present. They must either converse in a language understood by the monitoring officials, or it must be translated. Until 2008, prisoners could only be visited by three members of their immediate families, whilst visits from friends or journalists were forbidden. Very few authorisations for the latter have been given since.

Amnesty International reported “that many families abandon their condemned relatives in such circumstances either because of the shame of having a family member on death row or an inability to cope with the stress of continuing the relationship.” A person sentenced to death cannot receive any visitors between the announcement of their execution date and the day of said execution. Families live in fear of repeating the experience of the mother of Kimura S.. On the morning of 21 December 1995, she went to visit her condemned son and was told by the guards that visiting hours were very busy and to come back at noon. When she returned, she was asked whether she wanted to take her son’s body away for burial.

The remains of an executed person are cremated according to Japanese tradition. The ashes may be returned to their family upon request. Otherwise, they will be scattered.

Medical examinations of prisoners sentenced to death should be conducted regularly. According to the FIDH, incarcerated people must bear the cost of these examinations along with other types of care, including glasses and dentures. Prisoners can rarely afford this. They frequently suffer from caries, periodontal diseases and problems with their eyesight. Their prison conditions (lack of exercise, vitamins and medical assistance) are at the root. Back problems are common caused by long periods of immobility which are imposed on prisoners.

Care is provided by doctors, nurses and staff called “quasi-nurses”: guards who have received training in basic nursing skills. They identify prisoners’ medical issues and relay them to the doctors, who then examine the prisoners and provide the necessary treatment.

Whether or not a prisoner sentenced to death is transferred to an exterior hospital is up to the warden of the facility. Requests for such transfers are rarely accepted. Several deaths have been reported resulting from a lack of adequate medical care.

It is common for the mental health of people facing the death penalty to deteriorate. It is rare and difficult for independent professionals to evaluate their mental health. When they do take place, such evaluations’ results are not sent to prisoners’ lawyers and they are retained only by the judicial authorities. Several people were reportedly executed in 2003, 2007 and 2008 whilst suffering from mental ill-health.

Prisoners’ isolation together with the secrecy surrounding prison conditions and the absence of any independent oversight make it difficult to obtain any information about the state of prisoners’ health.

• The Japan Innocence and Death Penalty Information Center (JIADEP) website
• The Japan Innocence and Death Penalty Information Center, List of defendants who are under sentence of death in Japan.
• David T. Johnson, The Culture of Capital Punishment in Japan, 2020. (open access)
• ACAT France, En attendant l’exécution. Vivre dans les couloirs de la mort, 2018. (in French)
• Prison Insider, Japan: deprivation of liberty, deprivation of humanity, 2019.
• Prison Insider, Japan: ”her present fate is to rot in solitude”, 2019.
• Prison Insider, Japan: time is money, 2019.
• Prison Insider, Japan: frozen time, frozen days, 2018.
• Le Point, Japon: la peine capitale cruelle aussi pour les gardiens de prison, 2018. (in French)
• Japan Today, A look at life on death row in Japan, 2014.
• Amnesty International, Japan: briefing to the UN Committee against torture, 2013.
• United Nations Committee Against Torture, Concluding observations on the second periodic report of Japan, adopted by the Committee at its fiftieth session, 2013.
• The Death Penalty Project, The Death Penalty in Japan: A Report on Japan’s legal obligations under the ICCPR and an assessment of public attitudes to capital punishment, 2013.
• Elizabeth M. Sher, Death Penalty Sentencing in Japan under the Lay Assessor System: Avoiding the Avoidable Through Unanimity, 2011.
• Amnesty International, Hanging by a thread: mental health and the death penalty in Japan, 2009.
• Mother Jones, The Death Penalty in Japan, 2006.
• FIDH, The death penalty in Japan: A practice unworthy of a democracy, 2003.