The police in several prefectures started partial audio and video recordings of the process of interrogation of criminal suspects on a trial basis in September. This is in preparation for the introduction, next May, of the system that will have ordinary citizens sit with professional judges at district courts in trials of serious criminal cases such as murder, arson, rape and burglary resulting in injuries or death. The recordings are intended to lighten the burden of lay judges who must consider various items of evidence. As carried out now, the recordings cover only a limited part of the interrogation process. Its scope should be widened to ensure a fair and smooth trial.

In the first month of recordings done on a trial basis, the Metropolitan Police Department in Tokyo and the police in Osaka, Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama prefectures recorded parts of the interrogations of 12 suspects. Although the National Police Agency plans to expand the practice nationwide in fiscal 2009, the MPD and the police in the four prefectures recorded only the part in which an investigator reads out a record of an oral statement to the suspect, asking the latter to confirm its content, and the latter then puts his or her signature and seal on the record.

At actual trial, public prosecutors will present a DVD containing this scene as well as written records of oral statements to the court. But the DVD recording appears to be just a formality. It also must be noted that lay judges probably will not know the facts behind the preparation of the written records of the oral statements, which often come in the form of a first-person account. They are written by the investigator on the basis of the suspect's confession.