70% of murder retrials with acquittals delayed by prosecutors

There are at least 17 murder retrials in which guilty sentences have been overturned in Japan since the end of World War II, and public prosecutors had appealed court decisions to hold retrials in 12 of the cases, resulting in delays in the completion of the retrials, according to sources.
Among the 12 cases, a retrial decision for the Fukawa case in Ibaraki Prefecture took the longest to be finalized, according to the Japan Federation of Bar Associations and other sources.
On that case, the Tsuchiura branch of Mito District Court decided in September 2005 to hold a retrial of two men who had been sentenced to indefinite prison terms for murder and robbery, but the decision was finalized only after the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by prosecutors about four years and three months later.
Meanwhile, a retrial decision in June 2012 for the murder of a then Tokyo Electric Power Co. female employee was finalized in only about two months, as prosecutors stopped short of appealing the decision to the top court.
Among other cases, Shizuoka District Court is scheduled to rule on Sept. 26 on the retrial of Iwao Hakamata, 88, over the 1966 murder case. A retrial decision for Hakamata took about nine years to be finalized.
“Appeals by prosecutors make it even more difficult to start retrials, so a law revision is needed to prohibit such moves,” said Ryukoku University Prof. Tsukasa Saito.