Japan is a country where the death penalty is rarely carried out on prisoners, and in many cases, they would rather let heinous prisoners die in prison than directly send them to the death penalty. Only in rare cases will the actual execution of the perpetrator be considered because of public opposition and the plaintiff's insistence on requesting immediate execution.
Among them, the 1999 Fukuda Takayuki murder case is a special case of the immediate execution of the death penalty, but the process of sentencing has caused the plaintiff to suffer a lot of torture and pain. Under Japan's harsh system of making it difficult to exceed 10 people per year, the main culprit in the case, Fukuda Takayuki, was under 18 years old, and the execution process was even more difficult.
Fukuda Takayuki did not escape punishment in the end, and became the first minor in Japan to be sentenced to death after World War II. So what we need to know is, how did this difficult judgment come about? Does Fukuda's ability to become a special case for executions mean that public opinion can promote judicial progress?
Fukuda Takayuki murder case
In April 1999, a horrific murder occurred in Hikaruichi, Hiroshima, Japan:
Yayoi, a young housewife, and her 11-month-old daughter were tortured and killed in their home, and an autopsy showed that Yayoi was strangled unguarded and then raped and humiliated, while her daughter Yuxia was first seriously injured and then strangled. Afterwards, the murderer stuffed the bodies of the mother and daughter into the closet, opened the door and walked away.
When 23-year-old Hiroshi Kimura came home from work and found that the door was open and there was no one at home, he felt very strange, because usually at this time, his wife must have prepared meals, and the children were not sleeping, and there would always be some giggling or babbling.
When Kimura entered the bedroom and saw the blood on the floor, he was instantly dizzy, because he realized that something had happened to his wife and daughter, he looked around like crazy, shouted, and finally, in the closet, he saw his long-dead wife and his daughter who was wrapped in plastic bags and had a bruised face.
After Kimura called the police, the Japanese police quickly dispatched, and in the end, without much effort, they caught Takayuki Fukuda, an unemployed teenager wandering nearby. Surprisingly, Fukuda Takayuki confessed to his criminal behavior, and after that, the police recorded Fukuda Takayuki's motive and crime history:
Fukuda Takayuki's family was broken since he was a child, and he never saw his mother again when he was very young, and his father not only showed little concern for him, but also often insulted his son verbally after being drunk, and his private life was chaotic. Fukuda Takayuki has had a fear of living people since he was a child, and when he grew up, he was harsh and indifferent, and his work was always not long, and only a group of friends who regarded him as a little brother accepted him.
Fukuda hated these people, but he was close to them, because with these people, he did not have to disguise himself, he could curse as much as he wanted, release his dissatisfaction and resentment against his father and society, and these people taught him how to vent his sexual impulses.
On the day he turned 18, Fukuda suddenly felt that he should have a "sex ceremony", and he remembered a young woman he had met not long ago.
Before committing the crime, Fukuda knew that Japanese law has always had exceptions to the protection of minors, and he will be especially kind to young people between the ages of 18 and 20.
After arriving at the place of the crime, after observing that the male of the family left from work, Fukuda Takayuki pretended to be a plumber and knocked on the door of the other party's house, but he was restrained and trembling with nervousness, which made the hostess Yayoi suspicious, and before Yayoi could react, Fukuda Takayuki stepped forward and strangled her neck, seeing that Yayoi was struggling so badly that he strangled her.
Before he died, Yayoi's eyes were fixed on his daughter, and Takayuki Fukuda then insulted her body, because the girl under the age of one next to him began to cry and crawled towards her mother, Fukuda Takayuki picked up the child and threw it, but when he found that the child did not faint, but cried again, he strangled the child again.
Because Fukuda's crime was heinous and completely malicious homicide, at the time of the first trial of the case, in accordance with the tradition of Japanese legal circles for "prospective minors" under the age of 20 to be given lenient sentences, the judge sentenced the murderer Fukuda Takayuki to life imprisonment.
However, such a verdict was unacceptable to ordinary people, and many people angrily crowded around the courthouse, asking the judge through the media: Is it more than a simple murder case for Takayuki Fukuda to use the trust of others to kill strangers and destroy a family. Is it premeditated antisocial behavior?
Everyone agrees that Fukuda should be sentenced to death, because forgiveness for such criminals means leaving all families trapped in an insecure environment of the rule of law.
After receiving the verdict, the plaintiff Kimura Hiroshi held a press conference to express his great sorrow and incomparable anger to the public, saying: If the judicial verdict is like this, then it is better to let the murderer go, I will kill him with my own hands.
Kimura Yoshi 3300 days
Unfortunately, during the second trial of the criminal Fukuda Takayuki, Fukuda's defense lawyer team once again pointed out that Fukuda Takayuki was born into an abnormal family, which led to his slow mental development, and he simply lacked the rational judgment of adults, and naturally he should not be sentenced according to the "death penalty" standard of adults.
The lawyers' group also produced some "evidence" to prove that the criminal Fukuda Takayuki has repented after these days of imprisonment and education, and has the "possibility of being a person again."
Even though Kimura insisted that the criminal could not be pardoned, the verdict of the second instance was ultimately the same as the first instance: still life imprisonment.
Kimura was very disappointed, and in an interview with the famous Japanese journalist Takashi Menda, he revealed his anger at the court's insistence on "only considering the rights and interests of the defendant, but obviously not the rights and interests of the victim", saying that during the first trial, the judge prevented him from bringing photos of his wife and daughter to court, and the reason given was that he was "worried about affecting the mood of the suspect."
Moreover, what puzzled Kimura was that in the process from the first instance to the second trial, nearly 20 so-called Japanese "human rights lawyers" bravely defended the criminal Fukuda Takayuki.
Hiroshi Kimura appealed to all the Japanese people: Please support me, I need your help! And through the TV program, he showed that he could not return to a normal life after the death of his wife and daughter: he rarely went home, preferred to sleep in the company or on the street, long-term insomnia, often made mistakes at work, angina in the middle of the night, and occasionally heard his daughter's crying.
As a victim, Kimura Hiroshi was burdened with regret, remorse, anger and powerlessness as a family member, and he was unable to overcome his grief and convince himself to accept the current verdict.
After the program was broadcast, Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi paid attention to the case, saying: The existing Japanese law is obviously not enough to support and protect victims, and we cannot sit idly by and watch such situations and demands.
Coupled with the growing Japanese people's call for the heavy sentencing of the murderer Fukuda Takayuki, Japanese society has begun to promote new bills such as the Law on the Protection of Crime Victims, the Criminal Procedure Correction Law, and the Law on the Correction of the Procuratorial Review Council.
By April 22, 2008, the Hiroshima court had reopened, this time with plaintiff Hiroshi Kimura no longer alone in front of a powerful team of defense lawyers, because he was backed by 4,000 Japanese citizens who could not sit still in the courtroom, who surrounded the court, claiming to demand the most just and resolute verdict.
What no one expected was that the criminal Fukuda Takayuki overturned the case at this time, and he overturned the crimes he had previously confessed, saying that he did not want to kill at the beginning, and that it was an accident that caused the victim's death. Fukuda's lawyer defended him, saying:
Fukuda Takayuki not only had no intention of killing, but also did not want to rape, and when he hugged the victim Yayoi, it was because her kindness and beauty reminded him of his mother. The victim resisted fiercely, so that Fukuda Takayuki strangled her to death when he stopped her.
In addition, the lawyer also said that the reason why Fukuda insulted the corpse after manslaughter was because he remembered a book about a ritual that can bring people back to life through sexual intercourse. As for the death of the baby Xixia, Fukuda Takayuki said that he did not remember at all, and that it was purely induced by the police during the first trial, and he actually only remembered that after everything was awake, he saw himself put the baby into a bag.
Fortunately, in the subsequent trial, the court provided new evidence, that is, the private letters handed over to the police by several of Fukuda's "friends", which Fukuda wrote while serving his sentence, and there were several paragraphs in the letters proving that Fukuda's so-called "unintentional killing", "not remembering" and "repentant behavior" were all big lies.
Two of the passages were used as the main evidence in court, "Is it a crime for a male dog to meet a cute on the road one day and ride it like this?" "This world is the world of the wicked after all, and after seven or eight years, I will definitely be released, and by that time, you will definitely have a grand party to welcome me, right?"
This time, the judge overturned the verdicts of the first and second trials and sentenced the criminal Fukuda Takashi to death.
On February 20, 2012, Japan's Supreme Court issued a final ruling upholding the death sentence against Fukuda Takayuki and subsequently sent him to the death penalty.
By this time, the vicious murder case had dragged on for 13 years, which also meant that Kimura had been wrestling with Japan's so-called "law for the protection of prospective minors" for 13 years. But in any case, the final verdict of the Fukuda Takayuki murder case received a good social response, and in addition, the three bills previously promoted by the prime minister himself were unanimously passed.
The famous journalist Takashi Menda also wrote a book entitled "Why You Struggle with Despair: 3300 Days of Kimura Hiroshi", detailing the unimaginable pain and hardship that Kimura experienced in this case, and at the end, he mentioned that Kimura Hiroshi had repeatedly tried to get close to the "real" Fukuda Takayuki, hoping to see that he still had a little conscience in his heart.
But then Kimura discovered that the real Fukuda Takayuki was only suitable for the death penalty.
The true meaning of the death penalty
Hiroshi Kimura once expressed his expectations in his lawsuit, saying, "Although I hate criminals to the bone, and think that it is not a pity for such a person to die, on the other hand, I know that the meaning of the death penalty is not to achieve revenge, and later I hope that Fukuda Takayuki will sincerely face the evil deeds he has committed, and understand the dignity and meaning of life when he knows that he may be deprived of his life." ”
In addition, in the past 13 years, Kimura Hiroshi has also tried to forgive the criminal Fukuda Takayuki:
"The trial is not only to punish the perpetrator, but also to reconcile our victims with the perpetrators, perhaps, the victim hopes to see a villain he thinks is heinous, and may eventually be reborn and become a good person who works sincerely, then the victim can also repair his own pain to a certain extent."
It's a pity that Kimura Hiroshi's expectations will only be disappointed in the end, because it turns out that the criminal Fukuda Takayuki is an out-and-out scumbag, and he dies without repentance until the law sends him directly to the gallows.
Since then, "Japan's first juvenile sentenced to death" has attracted worldwide attention, and some Chinese experts have pointed out that no matter which country's criminal case, it seems that the perpetrator's rights will always be the first to think of the perpetrator's rights and complete its necessary protections, but the rights of victims and their families also need attention.
In China, since 1979, the law has ruled that the death penalty does not apply to minors under the age of 18, but in general, China's criminal law is heavier than in other countries.
In addition, in the Fukuda Takayuki murder case, the judge did not fully assess the social harm of the case at the beginning, but the criminal's final sentence to death does not mean that the public will kidnaps the judiciary.
Because the sentencing of each country has a scale, Fukuda Takayuki's final sentence to death is still within the scale stipulated in the Japanese criminal law, but due to the intervention of public opinion, it has played a role in balancing the rights of the offender and the rights of the victim.
Perhaps, on the side of the victim Kimura Hiroshi, the death penalty means revenge, but also a kind of "forced reverse killing", because the death penalty itself is a social psychological common effect, is the "blood revenge" handed over to the public power judgment, it is not initiated by the victim, but forced to do it, while waiting for the approval results, there is also psychological torture.
But that's where the death penalty is all about.
End
After Fukuda Takayuki's execution, it was still difficult for Japan's death penalty rate to rise, first, the Japanese were very taboo about "sending people to death", they claimed that the taboo was to execute filthy and people may have grievances after death; Second, the Japanese sentenced to death for a long time, such as the 13-year-long sentence faced by Hiroshi Kimura, which is still very common in Japan today.
But in any case, similar cases will tell the victims: Don't give up no matter what, because the dead will not agree, and the people will stand with the justice you hold.
Resources
MUJI Japan: Imaginary Dislocation, Jiang Jianqiang, 2017
"The Penal Model of Keeping the Bottom Limit", Wang Liangming, 2020
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Author: Wish
Editor: Lin Yan