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Justice Minister Hatoyama issued a press release on Friday stating that three death-row inmates had had their sentences “finalized” that morning.

Of course, this is a euphemism. To have your sentence finalized means… well, that you get killed by the state, to put it bluntly. Now, my own feelings about the death penalty aside, even its most dedicated proponents could not support the way that it’s carried out in Japan.

First of all, the method itself is hanging. Not “drop you a long way and snap your neck and you’re unconscious within a second” hanging, but “leave you in unimaginable pain as you slowly suffocate over 15 minutes” hanging. Once in a while, when that doesn’t work out so well, it’s “cut you down and have the guard do some Judo choke holds on you” hanging. At least once, it has been a “better not let the family have the body back, there is too much evidence of a botched job” hanging.  Hangings were conducted in 10 countries in 2007: Bangladesh, Botswana, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Singapore, Sudan and Syria.  Japan is the only of these that is considered to be a developed country.

The real cruelty, however, does not lie in the method of execution, or in this final agonizing 15 minutes. It’s that for 7 or 8 years, prisoners are kept in death row, never informed of the date of their execution until the day itself. Every day, they must live in a half-alive, half-dead state, never knowing if the footsteps they hear coming down the hallway each morning will herald their final day to live. If the prison officials stop by their cell one morning, the final moments of life have arrived. If not, this only signifies a 24-hour extension of life — who knows what will happen tomorrow? This means that prisoners are never given a chance to say final goodbyes to family members, never a chance to put things in order. The Justice Ministry explains that this is to lessen mental anguish and torture to inmates, who might start having problems when they know that their execution date is approaching, but psychologists argue that not knowing is even worse.

Family members, as well, are only notified once the sentence has been carried out. In one tragic story, a mother came one morning for her weekly visit with her son on Death Row. She was told by prison officials that her son was busy, and that she should come back in the afternoon. When she came back, she was informed that her son had been executed that morning, and that she should collect the body.

Hangings are usually carried out on a Friday, to limit public discourse in the media, and are almost always carried out when Parliament is not in session, to prevent questioning and debate from opposition. Most surveys still do show that Japan is overwhelmingly supportive of capital punishment, but one wonders how that might change if the general public were more aware of the way that it’s carried out here…

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 at 2:50 pm and is filed under japan, news, opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.