Japan's continued resort to the death penalty raises a number of troubling questions. In recent years a cascade of revelations about forced confessions, faked evidence and prosecutors withholding exculpatory evidence indicates that a number of people have been wrongly convicted for crimes they didn't commit.
In some of these cases the incarcerated victim has been freed and found not guilty in a retrial. They have lost many years of their lives and for this there is no adequate compensation.
It is equally disturbing that prosecutors have failed to apologize for their wrongdoings and nobody in the judiciary has been jailed for abuse of power and infringement on civil liberties in securing wrongful convictions.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.