Recently, there has been a lot of discussion on the Internet about Chen Shifeng's murder of Jiang Ge, and I just have a book on the underground execution site of the Tokyo Detention Center and the execution of the death penalty, and the excerpt is as follows.
Please note that Chen Shifeng's sentence has not yet come down, he is not a death row prisoner. Probably not the death penalty.
There are 7 executions in Japan.
Sapporo Branch Detention Center Sendai Branch Detention Center Tokyo Detention Center Nagoya Detention Center Osaka Detention Center Hiroshima Detention Center Fukuoka Detention Center
Until the middle of the Showa period, japanese executions were carried out outdoors, and the floor creaked so loudly that death row inmates could hear them. Later, it was changed to indoor execution, which was roughly in the basement, and outsiders could not spy on it, and high-altitude helicopters could not be secretly photographed. In recent decades and more than half a century, the execution ground has been closed to the public, and no one has seen the real appearance of the execution chamber except for the criminal officer and some relevant people. In 2003, members of the Diet inspected the renovated Tokyo detention center and still banned photography. At one point, the lawyer initiated a judgment to ask for the disclosure of the inside appearance of the execution chamber, but lost the case. As a result, the relevant information of the execution room became a secret within a secret.
Exterior of the Tokyo Detention Center
The death row inmate's single cell is on the 8th floor, and the inside cannot be seen in any way from the outside.
Illustrator Hagoromo Hagoromo paints the execution chamber according to memory (please enlarge and take a closer look)
The 7 execution chambers are roughly the same structure, all of which are two-tiered hanging tables.
Murano's "Death Penalty in Japan" is based on the "Statistical Annual Report of the Procuratorate" such as the "White Book of Crimes", and the data show that from 1946 to 2007, 627 people were executed, and 101 "living death row prisoners" were sentenced to death, so more than 728 people were sentenced to death. The number of executions sentenced and executed is basically less than 10 per year, and the number of executions from 1990 to 1992 is 0. In recent years, the number of death sentences has increased, and the number of death row inmates has exceeded 100.
Simply put, the condition for the death penalty is "to kill more than two people", but even if the victim is only one person, if it is a robber killing, rape killing, insurance murder, abduction and murder, the possibility of a death sentence is very high. In the 2006 Nara underage girl murder, although the victim was only a young girl, the prisoner Kaoru Kobayashi was sentenced to death because the purpose of the crime was to indecency a young child. The prisoners themselves claimed to be dying, so the death sentence was handed down quickly, fast enough to exceed custom. In the April 1999 murder of a mother and child in Hikari City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, the prisoner was 18 years old and 30 days old at the time and was legally a minor. In 2006, the Supreme Court rejected the local high court's "life sentence", and in 2012 the death sentence was commuted. The motive of the prisoner in this case was simply to "find someone to have sex with", the 11-month-old baby was thrown to death because of incessant crying, and the 23-year-old housewife was killed because of desperate resistance. The victim's father and husband taught themselves criminal law and strongly demanded a death sentence. The sentencing of the death penalty is said to have been accompanied by the brutality of the means of homicide, but also influenced by the strong will of the victims' families.
The death penalty is based not only on deprivation of human life, but also on 18 crimes under the law: subversion of the state (civil unrest), the crime of inducing external troubles, obstructing the flow of trains, ships and planes, and the crime of rebellion, which may cause a large number of deaths.
The daily life of a death row inmate in a detention center
The punishment for death row inmates is "death penalty", so that every day of life there is no other punishment and they enjoy the same treatment in detention as the unjudged. If the prisoner asks, he can also do some indoor work. Absolutely impermissible is communication with other death row inmates, "one person on the road" from the time of sentencing.
The day in a death row prisoner is like this: get up at 7:00, breakfast at 7:30, lunch at 11:50, dinner at 16:30, every day physical movement is a must, in addition to complete freedom. Once a week, you can watch the video, read books, copy and translate scriptures. If you have money, you can designate food to be purchased by the staff, and the things sent in from outside must go through the methods and paths formulated by the authorities. The food in the detention center has a good reputation among the prisoners, and the snacks they like can also be purchased out of their own pockets, and when they have no money, they can save some small money by writing the Scriptures and other work.
What is tightly controlled is communication with outside the prison, where only family members and lawyers are eligible to apply for meetings, and the number of meetings is very limited. The meeting between MPs and prisoners was a record of 31 years after Socialist Party leader Takiko Doi in 1972, before being broken by House of Representatives Member Hidetomo Hosaka to detain hakata Kurata (released in March 2014). The most recalcitrant position on the prison front is that death row inmates arouse hope for life by over-interacting with support groups.
The law stipulates that it should be carried out within half a year after the death sentence, but in fact the execution period is very random, some prisoners are still alive in prison for 30 years after the sentence, and some are executed within one year after the sentence (in recent years, the sensational "house guard case", in which the prisoner broke into the primary school and killed 8 people and injured 15 people. The housekeeper begged for a quick death, "If you don't let me die within half a year, I will accuse you"). In general, death row inmates who are found to have the potential for an unjust conviction, who are on the run, and whose mental state is extremely abnormal, are subject to death penalty executions. Conversely, "model death row inmates" who are physically and mentally healthy, who do not have relatives and friends waiting to meet, and who have no desire to appeal, are more likely to take the turn to be executed. Prisons generally do not carry out executions on weekends and holidays, but are easier to select as execution days during parliamentary recesses, before the change of ministers of justice, on Fridays, and on the last two days of the year.
Why can't the prisoners be notified in advance so that they are ready to die? It is said that there were once death row inmates who committed suicide with razor blades when they saw that they were about to be executed, and it is said that in order to avoid responsibility, and in order to calm the mood of death row prisoners, the death row prisoner himself was not informed in advance of his death date.
Generally, on the morning of the execution, I am notified at about 9 o'clock after breakfast. Prisoners have no time to say goodbye to their families or lawyers, and they leave with unfinished work on hand.
After the death notice, the attitude of the prisoners is various, such as those who are ready, those who are paralyzed and unable to stand, and those who throw things violently. Prisoners in either state are carried by the criminal officer to the execution chamber with their armpits. On the way, pass by a room with a statue of Guanyin, where the teacher recites the sutra. Prisoners could write suicide notes in this room, eat snacks and fruits or smoke cigarettes. Then he changed into white clothes and covered with white cloth, and the criminal officer was forced to the execution room next to him, and whether he resisted or not was immediately put on a rope and tied together with his feet. After the folded curtains are silently separated, the witness can see the interior through the glass.
Five executioners waited in the room where the prisoners could not be seen. There are 5 buttons in that room, and after hearing the command, the 5 executives press the buttons at the same time. Only one of the 5 buttons activated the floor under the death row inmate's feet, but the executive did not know who had pressed the effective button in order to alleviate the executive's "murderous guilt". On this day, each executive was paid 20,000 yen in cash. Asked whether any of the detainees refused to participate in the execution, they replied, "Those who refuse will not remain in the detention facility." ”
The floor at the bottom of the death row prisoner's feet was opened, and the prisoner fell from the one-meter square cave, and the static state remained for 30 minutes after the intense.
Immediately after the execution, the prison contacted the prisoner's family, but the vast majority of the families refused to receive the remains. At 11 a.m., the detention center was reported to the Ministry of Justice and the execution was completed. The Ministry of Justice is responsible for the cremation of remains as well as the burial of monasteries.
The hanging was excessively brutal and the death was said to be tragic. Historically, there have been decisions to appeal for annulment, but the case was lost, and the hanging is still used in Japan today.
Minister of Justice Kei Sato, who served from December 1990 to November 1991, refused to sign the death warrant for religious reasons (he himself was a Pure Land Masamune monk). Minister of Justice Masaaki Sugiura, who served from October 2005 to September 2006, declared that he would not sign the death warrant when he took office, withdrew his speech an hour later, and later objectively did not sign the death warrant during his previous term. In contrast, Minister of Justice Masaharu Gotoda, who took office after a three-year death penalty gap from the beginning of 1990, set the goal that "there should be executions every year," and in fact, this goal has been achieved every year since then.
From the point of view of maintaining the order of the law, those who support the abolition of the death penalty should not be elected Minister of Justice, and so far there is no precedent for resigning as Minister of Justice because of the death penalty. Komeito MPs oppose the death penalty system, and successive ministers of justice do not have Komeito party members, so it can be seen that there are relevant considerations when forming the cabinet.
Imprisoned at the Tokyo Detention Center, he was sentenced to death but has not been executed, and the most famous prisoner is probably Akira Asahara (Tomoo Matsumoto), the former leader of the Aum Shinrikyo sect. It is said that he is insane and incontinent. Many people believe that this person cannot carry out the death penalty, and if he dies, he will die for his faith, he will be martyred, and his religious and political responsibilities will be relieved of his religious and political responsibilities, which is a major negative effect for society.
Regarding the death penalty and the rule of law, Japanese society has a very poor understanding of us. The Chen Shifeng incident may be an opportunity to learn. Many things can be understood by ethnic differences, but the sense of the rule of law, I think the japanese ideological process predates us, and they also have a past in which emotions and conscience are higher than the legal order.
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Author: Jiang Jie
京夜 Chat (jingyeliao)