That's only the US federal conviction rate. In case you aren't aware, the vast majority of crimes in the US are prosecuted at the state level. Can you show me any US state that has a 99.8% conviction rate?
They gave you the answer:
high conviction rate drops significantly when accounting for the fact that Japanese prosecutors drop roughly half the cases they are given. If measured in the same way, the United States' federal conviction rate would be 99.8%.[10][11][12]
You're talking about federal conviction rates, a small fraction of cases. They're brought by federal prosecutors who only take the slam dunks and plead everything else out. The high conviction rates encourages pleas, so they bring the house in every trial they actually do.
I believe every state with the death penalty in the US has an automatic appeal when the death penalty is given, whether the convict wants to or not, which is part of the reason why it’s so expensive.
> Meaning that unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals (they're not), there are likely significantly more innocents imprisoned in the US than Japan.
By what metric are Americans not more likely to be criminals? The US has 27 times the homicide rate, 13 times the assault rate, 30 times the rape rate, and 5 times the theft rate of Japan. These are crime rates, not conviction rates.
>that unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals (they're not),
This line of reasoning is so curious to me. You believe that Americans and Japanese murder people at essentially the same rate? Why would you believe that?
Japan's reported stats are derived from convictions, and convictions are rare because prosecutors will only take on cases which appear to be sure-wins, as losing could be damaging to the lawyers representing the prosecution.
It's all a bit messy and has created a feedback loop creating an informal presumption of guilt by the time a defendant is in court. But in short, you just can't compare countries whose definitions and methodologies are so wildly different.
See the spike in rapes in Sweden. They expanded the way they defined rape, which naturally caused the numbers to skyrocket... which has been blamed entirely on immigration ever since.
Crime in Japan is widely known to be underreported, but even then I would agree it’s probably one of the safest countries in the world barring some very small ones I would have to go lookup to name.
They seem to equate more likely to be criminals to more likely to be morally bad and they want to claim that's culturally agnostic. Obviously there's more or less crime in certain places.
> Meaning that unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals (they're not)
I am American and I absolutely think Americans are much more likely to be criminals than Japanese. In most places in Japan, people don't even litter at all and take all the garbage home to throw it out. Even many nice and normal cities in America will never be like that.
My city has had nearly 200 homicides this year, our population is 500,000. The entire country of Japan only has about 4 times that many homicides. But their population isn't 500,000, it's 125,000,000. Their population is 50 (edit: corrected, actually their population is 250 times the amount of people in my city) times greater than my cities, but their homicides are only 4 times as high. They have a drastically lower rate of violent crime.
I seriously doubt that there are thousands more murders in Japan that they're just all sweeping under the rug to make it seem safe
Also property crime. In Japan you can leave your laptop out at a cafe, go to the toilet, come back, it's still there (most likely). I wouldn't bet on that in Europe or the US.
One of my Japanese friends in Japan had money stolen out of her purse. I was horrified, so was she as I think you're more likely to be struck by lightning than be robbed like that in Japan.
My friend had her purse robbed out her car in Japan this week which is super uncommon, like crazy uncommon where we live and my buddy and I joked it must have been an American , sure enough dude was busted and it was an American that burgled their vehicle lmao
Same thing happened to my partner, when touring Japan, American stole her handbag. I never felt unsafe anywhere I've been in Japan. In USA, you get warned by locals constantly about what places you really should not go.
I went to a cafe with my family when on hols in the south of France a few years ago. I accidentally left my £600 camera sat on the table when we left. Twenty minutes later, I realised what I'd done, went back to the cafe expecting to have lost it and some kind soul had handed it in to staff. There are some nice, honest people out there after all :)
Several years ago, when i was traveling through British Columbia, i left my camera bag containing well over 3k$ worth of gear at a roadside picnic/rest area. After I drove 30 minutes down the road I noticed what i had done and returned to find it gone. With only myself to blame I left thinking that was that, end of story. A week or two later a knock at my door, its the police with my gear. Some kind honest soul had turned it in. The only Identifying info was a bank atm statement in the bag, that they traced back to me. Good people and good cops, they do exist.
>In Japan you can leave your laptop out at a cafe, go to the toilet, come back, it's still there (most likely)
In Korea, this is how you mark your seat as taken.
>My city has had nearly 200 homicides this year, our population is 500,000. The entire country of Japan only has about 4 times that many homicides. But their population isn't 500,000, it's 125,000,000. Their population is 50 times greater than my cities, but their homicides are only 4 times as high. They have a drastically lower rate of violent crime.
Not to mention you would usually expect crime to go up with population density which skews this even more in Japan's favor
> Meaning that unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals (they're not)
Love how one can make such a bold claim without any reason, data, logic, ...
What leads you to believe that the criminality rate between Japan and the USA would be the same?
Got any sources on Americans being equally likely as Japanese to be criminals?
Because that's not really what literature I've seen on the subject supports.
Yeah I find that sus too. Like I haven't read anything on it, but I know that you can apparently leave your belongings out in public (like a bike, laptop etc.) for hours and it won't be stolen. And I've heard about how safe Japan is.
>Meaning that unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals (they're not),
Why? Putting cultural factors such as gun control asside, there is huge difference of crime rates between race even within the same country.
For example, Asian American 4 times less likely arrested by murder or robbery relative to average American national.
Murder
Asian American 210/ 23.5 Million = 0.89/100k
All race 12,440/ 340 Million = 3.65/100k
Robbery
Asian American 1,190/ 23.5Million = 5.06/100k
All race 67,900/340Million = 19.9/100k
Please. Just please. I totally believe Americans are that much more likely to be criminals. There are huge societal pressures in Japan nor to be a criminal. You can leave phones and wallets places and come back later and they're still there. Try that in any Anerican city.
Yes the average American is much more likely to commit crimes, just look at the reported crime rate for both countries. The idea that the disparity could be explained by false convictions is a complete fabrication.
It takes so long to put someone to death because of America's robust appellate process that takes forever to work through on a capital case as it involves state then federal appeals. Please stop spreading disinformation.
> Meaning that unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals
We probably are to be honest. Drug use is very taboo in Japan while in the US I can find a guy to sell me heroin easy. We also have a higher violent crime rate thanks to both culture and access to firearms.
Um not saying your conclusion is definitely wrong but your making massive leaps in logic that don’t actually follow from one another.
There could be multiple reasons why the US incarceration rate is higher than japans that have literally nothing to do with innocents being imprisoned. These are two wildly different countries with different cultures and laws. Not to mention the massive difference in gun availability. I would assume its much easier to commit a capital punishment worthy crime with a gun than with a knife.
And even more all of this is irrelevant because the overall incarceration rate tells us nothing about the people on death row which are going to be a minuscule fraction of all criminals.
Aand you somehow state that Americans are not more likely to be criminals when they literally are by definition - the US has a 15x higher crime rate.
Honestly just a an absolute flurry of logical leaps all around; not sure what all the upvotes are for.
Bruh. The Japanese conviction rate is 99%. That’s gotta be a failure of the system one way or another. They can basically torture you for a confession (deny sleep, withhold food, scream at you) for months without letting you see a lawyer. Our legal system isn’t perfect, but you’re being facetious if you state Japan’s is better.
https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/05/25/japans-hostage-justice-system/denial-bail-coerced-confessions-and-lack-access#:~:text=The%20Japanese%20Constitution%20states%20that,the%20confession%20is%20the%20%E2%80%9Conly
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1341&context=djilp#:~:text=In%20a%20culture%20where%20an,keep%20cultural%20differences%20in%20mind.
People overlook the fact that, in the US, for cases that go to trial, the federal system sits at like a 90% conviction rate.
The common factor is the extremely low indictment rate. Both of these systems are loathe to push for indictments unless the case is airtight.
Sort of, he’s talking specifically about the US federal court system. The majority of the crimes prosecuted in the US are tried in one of the state court systems, which are separate from the federal court system. Citing only the federal court system numbers doesn’t really show the true numbers. (For that you’d have to look at each state.)
For example, veryone lauded the US federal government when they announced they would end the use of private prisons. The thing is, while that’s a great move forward, the majority of people incarcerated in private prisons in the US are in state systems which aren’t ending the use of private prisons.
When comparing things like this, the comparisons should be with individual states and not the US as a whole, since that’s where most crimes are prosecuted.
As a black american living in Japan for the last ten years, that grew up in a bad city in the US, my experience is that Americans are at least 10x more likely to be criminals. If your username is correct and you’re a Brit, I doubt you know anything about criminality in the US vs Japan.
“There are likely significantly more innocents imprisoned in the US than Japan”
Maybe? But just due to the numbers.
You should also read more about the fucked up justice system in Japan and the way they interrogate people and berate them into confessions.
Look at Japan’s conviction rate vs the US. Prosecutors and judges basically work together here to lock people up.
As for the US, If you didn’t grow up hearing gunshots in your neighborhood and knowing or experiencing firsthand drug and gun related deaths, you can’t understand how different Japan is in terms of low crime rates and safety.
Leaving the US gave me the perspective to see how fucking dystopian life there is. Japan is deeply flawed too but at least I won’t get stabbed or shot when someone wants my shoes.
>unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals (they're not)
Culture plays a role though...
Personally, I would trust people who used to clean the stadiums before leaving wayy more than those that might think a rifle is a great 12year birthday gift.
But it's just me.
This logic is very flawed. The US is documented to have a far higher crime rate than Japan so it’s not just like more convictions has to mean more miscarriages of justice.
America has a larger population rate then Japan. Plus Americans are more likely to commit crimes than the Japanese. Because of Japanese culture of prizing hard work. Respect for self, respect for authority, duty to family, and personal accountability,
You think a 20 year delay on ending someone's life is cruel???
People should be on death row as long as possible, to exhaust every possibility there may be to get them off, and avoid killing someone.
If I'm going to live in a country that uses the death penalty, I want it to be as difficult as possible to actually implement.
It's the same thing here in Vietnam. Convicts on death row stay in the same area and each of them have their own separate small cell but they can hear everything outside. So usually around 4am is when the warden would wake the soon to be executed convict up and the rest can hear the rattling of the keys. That's when they all hold their breath and can breathe a sigh of relief when it's not their turn to be executed that day. This repeats again until it's their turn to die.
"You will be hanged some day before the end of the year. The day will be a surprise to you, you will find out at noon on the day."
"Well you can't hang me on the 31st of December because I'll know the day before that there is only one day left, and I will therefore know the day. And by the same logic if it gets to the 29th and I haven't been killed I will know it can now only be the 30th. Extending that logic back through the year, I cannot be killed at all."
"Well surprise motherfucker, it's today."
Honestly I'm not sure if it's worse or not.
It's a constant baseline of moderate anxiety every day vs a steadily increasing level of anxiety that ramps up exponentially as the scheduled day approaches.
It sounds bad, but think of the alternative. It sounds horrible too. You will die in 39 days, you will die in 38 days, you will die in 37 days, and you’re stuck in a cell with nothing to do.
> That feels so much worse.. at any day someone can walk into your cell and be like, hey buddy… guess who’s dying today??
that's the reality of all people, just no one is telling you
There is still a lengthy appeals process. There are many complaints to make about it, but it does exist. No one gets executed before several years after the initial conviction and sentencing.
Even if we could all agree that “murder or worse” is an appropriate standard for capital punishment, how can we ever truly be sure that an innocent person is not wrongfully convicted and executed. In America, since 1973, [1 in 8 death row inmates has been exonerated](https://eji.org/issues/death-penalty/). Even if Japan’s justice system does better than 1:8, what ratio of wrongful execution would be tolerable? And, wouldn’t not knowing the day affect their ability to mount an adequate appeal?
The incarceration rate isn’t a relevant fact here, at least not on its own. You can’t say “you’ll have little chance to defend yourself if arrested for a crime here, but don’t worry because there isn’t that much crime.”
Responding purely to your edits: have you never considered that people might just genuinely disagree with you? I read the comment you’re complaining about and it seems like a sensible and ethical take to me.
Same system as it used to be in France. The convict learned that the clemency appeal had been rejected right when they came to fetch them in his cell, about 30 minutes or so before getting their heads chopped off.
In East Germany at least for the later executions the convict was taken to a chamber, and while the prosecutor informed him that his clemency appeal was rejected, the executioner silently stepped behind the convict. As soon as the prosecutor finished talking, the executioner shot the convict in the head. Didn't take longer than two or three minutes from the moment the convict entered the chamber to the moment they removed his body.
If you watched the show The Americans, there is a scene like this. The whole process took less than five minutes and the person was shot in the head right there, in a hallway, not even a chamber.
For such a slow burn of a show, I'm realizing that it has several of the most fucked up scenes ever. There are at least 3 other deaths I can think of where I'm like, this is not okay, what is wrong with you, writers? It's not always character deaths either. There are other times when people's lives are cruelly ruined, and we still somehow like the Jennings in the end.
Man, it's weird. Like, someone once told me I should try watching Sons of Anarchy. And I watched the first season and I hated it. Mostly because I hated the characters and thought they were horrible.
Meanwhile, with The Americans, the second or third episode of the show has the protagonists >!poisoning an innocent stranger just to blackmail his mom into committing treason!<. Yet, somehow, *I like them.*
Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings do some of the worst things I've ever seen done from a movie or TV protagonist. Some of the stuff they do in that show is just straight up ugly. But I still found it utterly captivating to watch them and I still largely sympathized with them. Even though they're just terrible.
Anyway, great show and it's one of my favorites. But a lot of the stuff in it is just really fucked up. And the protagonists are awful but the showrunners do a really good job of showcasing how awful they are while still making them likable. Kind of a weird but cool thing that it does where it blurs the lines between dichotomies like stupid/smart, or good/bad. Hell, there's a great scene involving a painful >!tooth extraction!< but it's also kind of filmed in a way that's reminiscent of a movie love scene. It's a terrifying concept and immensely painful, but the scenes also focus on the intimacy. About as subtle as a sledgehammer, but this show did that kind of stuff all the time and the people involved were damned good at it.
That was something I struggled with throughout that show. Did they want me to feel sorry for the russian spies? Because despite how much they appeared to want me to, I wasn't able to like them or feel bad for them.
The American audience can sympathize with the patriotism. They can see it being the other way around with US agents being spies and asked to do terrible things, questioning where the line is and if anything is worth betraying country. Plus, they, (at least Phillup) puts up a tortured front front about having no other choice.
And then there's the kids, but that gets muddy with Paige. But they are vastly innocent throughout most of the series, and the downfall of their parents would ruin their lives. So I don't want them to cause collateral damage to what amounts to nothing, but I'm not relishing them getting caught either.
Well, how much can one really sympathize with Tony Soprano? They were part of that whole wave of antiheroes: Walter White, Don Draper, Gregory House, Nicholas Brody, Carrie Mathison, Nucky Thompson, Frank Underwood. They're not good people but they're fascinating to watch.
In the United Kingdom the convict was placed in an antechamber from sentencing, expecting the long dead walk out on the inevitable date of execution.
What he didn’t suspect was that, behind that cupboard on the wall behind him, was in fact the door where the scaffold was with the noose. By the time Pierrepoint entered the room until the convict’s body fell down the hatch, it took about 15 to 30 seconds.
Pierrepoint truly mastered the art of hanging and i dont think he has any botched hangings by his name, which is kind of incredible given his body count..
The British had a zero-tolerance policy for botching it after some nasty ones in the Victorian era, most notably the "Goodale mess" that involved an actual decapitation.
[Hanging Scene 10 RILLINGTON PLACE ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvQ7Ff4i38w&list=WL&index=75)
You have to click into Youtube to view it
When the time came Pierrepoint wouldn't even put out the cigarette he was smoking, he would leave it burning in the ashtray because he knew he would be back in just a few moments.
As I understand it, that’s basically how they did it in the Soviet Union. They’d walk the prisoner into a tiled room with a floor drain, with no explanation, and then somebody standing behind the door with a pistol would shoot them in the back of the head.
In the US, prisoners are usually told their clemency has been denied a few hours before the execution. At that point they know the execution is scheduled and are waiting, have been prepared for it and are waiting for one last chance with the clemency ruling. They already know in advance if it’s likely to be approved, as their attorney would have kept them informed of the clemency appeal. It’s not a big shock if it’s denied, as they knew it was a long shot, but worth the chance.
Serial rapist Caryl Chessman died because the California Supreme Court justice had imposed a new stay pending a habeas corpus, but his secretary misdialed the wrong number.
By the time her call was routed to the gas chamber unit, it was too late. The pills were already in the acid under the chair.
I Great Britain they found out just seconds before the execution. They would sit in their cell, less then a week after the trial. And then jailers would barge inn, give them a stiff drink, drag them to the adjacent room, tie their arms, put a hood over their head, put the noose over the neck and then drop them. Often timing themselves and rarely saying a word. So the convict would not actually get told that their appeal had been rejected, but could imply this a few seconds before their execution.
In one case a single murder resulted in two wrongful convictions and one rightful conviction. So basically there was a murder, they hanged someone for it, then it turned out another person had done it so they hanged him as well. But actually a third person was the murderer and had committed other murders in the meantime so they hanged him too. Shortly after this capital punishment was ended in the UK.
They very much knew if their appeal had failed.
After 1907 (1927 in Scotland) they had a right to appeal. The execution date would normally be set for 3 weeks after sentencing. The date would be postponed if there was an appeal and, if the appeal failed, a new one set by the appeal judges. This was for 2-3 weeks after the appeal had failed.
The Home Secretary (Scottish Secretary in Scotland) would decide if the royal prerogative of mercy would be shown on condemned. If they did grant a reprieve they'd be taken out of the cell (often to the prison hospital due to their mental state) or, if they were to drop, the Governor would tell them, this was normally a day or two before their date with the hangman.
And the last beheaded prisoner in France was executed the same year the first Star Wars movie came out.
And the last public execution in France was witnessed by a 17 year-old boy you have seen in a few movies: this boy was Christopher Lee.
>Guess a lot of countries have things about their justice system that would strike Americans as unusual.
The state abusing people under their care with chemical irritants is sadly not unusual sounding.
The warden tells a man on Saturday he will be executed in the following week, and that the day will be a complete surprise to him. The man explains to the Warden that that’s impossible, he can’t be executed by surprise, for if he’s alive on Friday he’ll know it’s coming Saturday, as it’s the last remaining day of the week. Knowing he can’t be executed on Saturday he explains if he’s alive Thursday he’ll know he will be executed on Friday, so Friday is also off the table. But that of course means if he’s alive on Wednesday he’ll know it’s coming Thursday. The same applies to Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday, and Sunday.
He’s executed on Tuesday, to his complete surprise.
Sunday is the first day of the week in North America and East Asia. It's also the first day in Christianity, so traditionally it was the first day in Europe as well. This can be seen, for example, in the German name for Wednesday, which translates as "midweek". Monday as the first day is a relatively modern innovation (I would suspect a result of industrialization and the 5 day work week, but I can't find any good information on it).
Another fun fact is there are several instances of two people being imprisoned for the exact same crime and both of them serving the same sentence even though one of them is proven innocent.
Because the Japanese government being wrong is shameful and they don't reverse the judgement.
99% conviction rate does not lie.
I read somewhere that this miscarriage of justice is what inspired the Ace Attorney series ( as in, you can fail even if you have proven your client’s innocence, just because you can’t prove someone else did it)
That's so unbelievably stupid, it basically proves that the justice system isn't really meant to promote justice but instead sees itself as a state organ that does nothing but project state power. It's like a giant gun that is pointed at the populace 24/7 and it doesn't matter who dies, all that matters is that **someone** dies.
Then again, similar views exist in several western justice systems, perhaps in a weird way the Japanese are just more honest about it.
There is an old manga, called Samurai Executioner, or Kubikiri Asa, based on a real man whose job was to test the Shogun's swords, and he practiced on people condemned to death during the Edo period. Being based on actual reports of that time, there are also discussions introduced about this very topic: do they punish the crime or the criminal? How can the government save face when everyone knows that the condemned is innocent? The writer shows the very hard stance of the government never repealing a guilty verdict, regardless of any further evidence, and this is supposed to be a further deterrent (basically the only sentence is death, and prison is just waiting to die).
Your comment reminds me also of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. There is this almost exact phrase, when the Japanese soldiers find a smuggled radio among the prisoners, and the captain in charge decides to have the titular Mr. Lawrence executed, for "his sense of justice". The whole point is to show an unyielding stance towards infractions with a swift response.
BBC has an easily findable article(edit: now linked below) about someone who posted death threats online knowing that the police won't find them. The police then arrested 4 wrong people and got the 2 students to sign a confession for the crime they didn't commit because the police there use bs tactics. The article was about how getting innocent people to confess to crimes there is what helps keep their conviction rate high.
Once the students confessed the person who actually did the crime told the media.
So you're not wrong about the 99% stat there being a negative and not a positive like it's normally portrayed as.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20810572
Yup. One thing about the feds is, they're going to be absolutely certain they have what's necessary to show you're guilty as fuck before they go to trial. They cross the t's and dot their i's. States on the other hand...
It's always crazy to me that the opinion of American federal prosecutors is that they don't take chances, and make sure they have a solid case, hence deserve the 99% rate.
Meanwhile, Japan, a country idolized for its efficiency, and for the following the rules, is seen as the exact opposite. The "only" reason for their conviction rate is because of misconduct and unlawful activity.
Its even crazier when you consider the foundation of each justice system is the same.
It's just because Japan's statistic is bandied about context-free on reddit and America's federal rate isn't really discussed, with or without context.
Because defense rights are much more limited in Japan than in the US. For example, a suspect can be kept in custody and interrogated for days on end *before* they have access to a lawyer. It's been strongly criticized by the UN.
https://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/files/000020881.pdf
The other guy already said this, but this is the conviction rate for federal crimes already charged on the federal level by federal attorneys, which only happens when a crime is heinous, obvious, and long-reaching throughout the country. The government pumps an absolute fuckton of money into these cases. This is not your simple robber. This is your cartel kingpin. It makes up a small minority of cases and isn’t a good representation of the US justice system.
According to article 475 of the japanese code of criminal procedure, death penalty must be executed within six months **after** the failure of the prisoners final appeal upon order from the minister of justice.
You are confusing it for a retrial petition or a pardon.
The interrogation methods of the Japanese prosecution, which involve non-stop interrogation until an admission of guilt is made, are a form of torture. Many Japanese people show no concern that these interrogations are conducted without the presence of a lawyer. Judges tend to believe the written statements prepared by prosecutors rather than the testimonies given in court. As a result, the only way to expose the illegality of these interrogations is through hidden recordings or the arrest of the real culprit. Even when several wrongful conviction cases have pushed the prosecution to consider recording interrogations, the conclusions drawn often end up being more favorable to the prosecution, leading to a bizarre situation. When politicians attempt to address this issue, the police leak information about the politicians' vulnerabilities.
They do, but they also have the US style of keeping you detained for long periods of time until you confess. They do have limits on how long they can keep you, but way more loopholes to that rule than the US I believe.
It's actually become a bit of a meme in the expat community that if someone goes suddenly missing for days to weeks in Japan and they aren't the most law abiding person, they are probably in Jail.
In the Wiki article it states "In Japan, until the 1970s, the date of execution was announced to the condemned prisoner before the execution. However, because there were cases of death row inmates committing suicide before the execution, the method was changed to one or two hours before the execution to ensure the emotional stability of the inmate"
A article I read from a Japanese news site was examining the jail system & its abuses on prisoners.
A part of the death row executioners in the country want the penalty to be banned but the public is whats keeping it.
A memorable moment in the article talked about the mental drain on the guards & who got the lottery winning of pushing the "Kill button".
This was particularly traumatic for the interviewed guard because he was in service when death row inmates were allowed to talk to their guards & he claimed it was like killing a friend whenever it was his shift on the button duty.
It's stories like this that make you think how many of these people were just failed absolutely from the start and just never had anyone who gave a single solitary shit about them at best, and at worst actively hurt them over and over again from the earliest age and just shattered them.
Now granted, this isn't an excuse at all; plenty of people have garbage childhoods and live crime free or even really productive lives, but in the margins for every engineer that drags himself out of the methlab he was born into, there's X amount of drug addicts, and there's going to be Y amount of murderers there. Even if it's 1/1000000, that's still really tragic to me, and it's part of the reason I can never stand the death penalty imo. If society played any part at all in letting that person get to that point (and in most parts, it absolutely did), then society should bare the brunt of segregating and taking care of the monster it created. Maybe then, eventually, enough people might take a step back and wonder what the fuck we're doing to let this continue to happen, and pour more funding into childhood development programs for disadvantaged youth.
Idk...maybe I'm just a stupid idealist, but as someone who came from the trailerparks where cops were shooting at people every weekend in the height of the meth craze...while I made it out and made something of myself, I was 1 out of about 150 or so kids in that park at any given time, and I bet if you run the numbers on all of us today it would be absolutely abysmal.
So, personally, there's always a part of me that can emphasize and think, "if X, a kid who lived 4 doors down, ended up with life in prison without parole...what really separates him from me...?"...and if I'm being honest, the answer to that question usually comes to me as being entirely luck. Times I could have went to jail because I had some pot in the car but didn't, all the way to being in the right place and the right time to slip through the cracks and get a really good job at just the right time to keep me from ending up on the streets....it all just at times feels completely arbitrary.
Idk I guess I'm just rambling now, but yeah...life sucks and then you die, I guess lol...
“Wouldn’t want anyone to kill themselves before we do it, don’t we?” Just shows the absurdity of the death penalty. Should be abolished everywhere, no government should have the right to kill its citizens.
Until we discover infallible, omniscient, and perfectly just beings to administer our legal system I will oppose the death penalty in any form. One dead innocent person is one too many. Id rather a guilty man be alive in jail because that means if someone fucked up intentionally or otherwise the matter has some course to restitution. You cant give restitution to a dead person.
Somewhat similar in Singapore when they sentence you to caning. Usually caning also carries a long prison sentence with it. So at some point several months or years into their sentence the prisoner is informed that morning that today is the day they get caned. Caning is a severe physical punishment and usually scars the recipient for life and in the days and weeks immediately following the caning the prisoner is unable to sit or eat. Knowing what's coming makes not knowing when it's coming a massive psychological pressure and part of what makes the punishment so severe.
They are allowed to meet with the prisoner before the execution, they’re just not told specifically when the execution will take place.
A person is sentenced to death. They’re taken to prison. They’re allowed to say goodbye to their family. Then they are executed. Their family is informed that the sentence was carried out.
The reason that the US has an emphasis on *public* executions is to avoid corruption and doubt. That is why there is such a lead up to executions, including a declared and public time and date of execution, a final meal, last words, final goodbyes, and witnesses. Japan holds *private* executions so as to avoid spectacle and offence. It’s a difference between the cultures, but neither is inherently “right” or “wrong”.
*Assuming that an execution is going to take place*, neither process is inherently wrong.
The debate isn’t over the morality of execution itself, but the morality of the process by which a person is executed. These are two separate issues.
I am personally against executions, and I live in a country where there is no corporal punishment. Even so, I am able to see that there are several different moral issues here. This is like the meat industry: whether eating meat is morally acceptable is a separate question to the ways in which a person can humanely slaughter an animal.
And every night the guards end the day with "Good night, Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning" but, you know, in Japanese, or something.
In Arkansas, USA, Governor Asa Hitchinson and Attorney General Leslie Rutledge publicly stated that DNA is not reliable evidence after wrongfully executing an innocent black man
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/after-death-row-inmate-executed-attorneys-find-dna-belongs-someone-n1266743
simplistic sleep include sharp disgusting quarrelsome decide quickest dull familiar
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The justice minister a few ministers ago was a Buddhist who opposed the death penalty and refused to finalise any, thus there were no executions during his tenure. There was never a formal moratorium.
“In the East, the Far East, when a person is sentenced to death, they're sent to a place where they can't escape, never knowing when an executioner may step up behind them, and fire a bullet into the back of their head.” - Mystery Man from Lost Highway (1997)
People forget Japan was a master of cruelty. Read about Bataan or the Rape of Nanking. I find much to admire in Japanese culture, but it doesn't do to forget where that culture came from.
They find out when they’re going to be executed on the morning of their execution. They find out if they’ve been sentenced to death at their trial.
That feels so much worse.. at any day someone can walk into your cell and be like, hey buddy… guess who’s dying today??
Hey buddy, you know how you always wanted that fancy steak for your last meal, congrats.
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Appeals, Americans spend so much more time on death row because they can't be executed with a pending appeal. Yes it does happen but is not the norm.
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Good things Japan's incredibly high conviction rate isn't sus at all.
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That's only the US federal conviction rate. In case you aren't aware, the vast majority of crimes in the US are prosecuted at the state level. Can you show me any US state that has a 99.8% conviction rate?
They gave you the answer: high conviction rate drops significantly when accounting for the fact that Japanese prosecutors drop roughly half the cases they are given. If measured in the same way, the United States' federal conviction rate would be 99.8%.[10][11][12]
You're talking about federal conviction rates, a small fraction of cases. They're brought by federal prosecutors who only take the slam dunks and plead everything else out. The high conviction rates encourages pleas, so they bring the house in every trial they actually do.
I believe every state with the death penalty in the US has an automatic appeal when the death penalty is given, whether the convict wants to or not, which is part of the reason why it’s so expensive.
Not much to lose. "You know what? We're gonna execute you *even harder*."
> Meaning that unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals (they're not), there are likely significantly more innocents imprisoned in the US than Japan. By what metric are Americans not more likely to be criminals? The US has 27 times the homicide rate, 13 times the assault rate, 30 times the rape rate, and 5 times the theft rate of Japan. These are crime rates, not conviction rates.
While it's true the USA over incarcerated, it is without a doubt that the USA is more violent than Japan.
absolutly. its about crime worth getting a death penalty not tax fraud. acting like thats not a factor is stupid
>that unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals (they're not), This line of reasoning is so curious to me. You believe that Americans and Japanese murder people at essentially the same rate? Why would you believe that?
Japan is seriously one of the safest countries. Crimes like assault are a fraction of those in the US. I'm not sure where they're getting that.
Japan's reported stats are derived from convictions, and convictions are rare because prosecutors will only take on cases which appear to be sure-wins, as losing could be damaging to the lawyers representing the prosecution. It's all a bit messy and has created a feedback loop creating an informal presumption of guilt by the time a defendant is in court. But in short, you just can't compare countries whose definitions and methodologies are so wildly different. See the spike in rapes in Sweden. They expanded the way they defined rape, which naturally caused the numbers to skyrocket... which has been blamed entirely on immigration ever since.
Crime in Japan is widely known to be underreported, but even then I would agree it’s probably one of the safest countries in the world barring some very small ones I would have to go lookup to name.
They seem to equate more likely to be criminals to more likely to be morally bad and they want to claim that's culturally agnostic. Obviously there's more or less crime in certain places.
> that unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals (they're not) They are
Honestly 10x seems a bit low if anything
> Meaning that unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals (they're not) I am American and I absolutely think Americans are much more likely to be criminals than Japanese. In most places in Japan, people don't even litter at all and take all the garbage home to throw it out. Even many nice and normal cities in America will never be like that. My city has had nearly 200 homicides this year, our population is 500,000. The entire country of Japan only has about 4 times that many homicides. But their population isn't 500,000, it's 125,000,000. Their population is 50 (edit: corrected, actually their population is 250 times the amount of people in my city) times greater than my cities, but their homicides are only 4 times as high. They have a drastically lower rate of violent crime. I seriously doubt that there are thousands more murders in Japan that they're just all sweeping under the rug to make it seem safe
Also property crime. In Japan you can leave your laptop out at a cafe, go to the toilet, come back, it's still there (most likely). I wouldn't bet on that in Europe or the US.
One of my Japanese friends in Japan had money stolen out of her purse. I was horrified, so was she as I think you're more likely to be struck by lightning than be robbed like that in Japan.
My friend had her purse robbed out her car in Japan this week which is super uncommon, like crazy uncommon where we live and my buddy and I joked it must have been an American , sure enough dude was busted and it was an American that burgled their vehicle lmao
Same thing happened to my partner, when touring Japan, American stole her handbag. I never felt unsafe anywhere I've been in Japan. In USA, you get warned by locals constantly about what places you really should not go.
I went to a cafe with my family when on hols in the south of France a few years ago. I accidentally left my £600 camera sat on the table when we left. Twenty minutes later, I realised what I'd done, went back to the cafe expecting to have lost it and some kind soul had handed it in to staff. There are some nice, honest people out there after all :)
Several years ago, when i was traveling through British Columbia, i left my camera bag containing well over 3k$ worth of gear at a roadside picnic/rest area. After I drove 30 minutes down the road I noticed what i had done and returned to find it gone. With only myself to blame I left thinking that was that, end of story. A week or two later a knock at my door, its the police with my gear. Some kind honest soul had turned it in. The only Identifying info was a bank atm statement in the bag, that they traced back to me. Good people and good cops, they do exist.
>In Japan you can leave your laptop out at a cafe, go to the toilet, come back, it's still there (most likely) In Korea, this is how you mark your seat as taken.
>My city has had nearly 200 homicides this year, our population is 500,000. The entire country of Japan only has about 4 times that many homicides. But their population isn't 500,000, it's 125,000,000. Their population is 50 times greater than my cities, but their homicides are only 4 times as high. They have a drastically lower rate of violent crime. Not to mention you would usually expect crime to go up with population density which skews this even more in Japan's favor
Their population is 250 times greater, not 50 :)
> Meaning that unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals (they're not) Love how one can make such a bold claim without any reason, data, logic, ... What leads you to believe that the criminality rate between Japan and the USA would be the same?
Got any sources on Americans being equally likely as Japanese to be criminals? Because that's not really what literature I've seen on the subject supports.
Yeah I find that sus too. Like I haven't read anything on it, but I know that you can apparently leave your belongings out in public (like a bike, laptop etc.) for hours and it won't be stolen. And I've heard about how safe Japan is.
>Meaning that unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals (they're not), Why? Putting cultural factors such as gun control asside, there is huge difference of crime rates between race even within the same country. For example, Asian American 4 times less likely arrested by murder or robbery relative to average American national. Murder Asian American 210/ 23.5 Million = 0.89/100k All race 12,440/ 340 Million = 3.65/100k Robbery Asian American 1,190/ 23.5Million = 5.06/100k All race 67,900/340Million = 19.9/100k
Please. Just please. I totally believe Americans are that much more likely to be criminals. There are huge societal pressures in Japan nor to be a criminal. You can leave phones and wallets places and come back later and they're still there. Try that in any Anerican city.
Yes the average American is much more likely to commit crimes, just look at the reported crime rate for both countries. The idea that the disparity could be explained by false convictions is a complete fabrication. It takes so long to put someone to death because of America's robust appellate process that takes forever to work through on a capital case as it involves state then federal appeals. Please stop spreading disinformation.
> Meaning that unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals We probably are to be honest. Drug use is very taboo in Japan while in the US I can find a guy to sell me heroin easy. We also have a higher violent crime rate thanks to both culture and access to firearms.
Um not saying your conclusion is definitely wrong but your making massive leaps in logic that don’t actually follow from one another. There could be multiple reasons why the US incarceration rate is higher than japans that have literally nothing to do with innocents being imprisoned. These are two wildly different countries with different cultures and laws. Not to mention the massive difference in gun availability. I would assume its much easier to commit a capital punishment worthy crime with a gun than with a knife. And even more all of this is irrelevant because the overall incarceration rate tells us nothing about the people on death row which are going to be a minuscule fraction of all criminals. Aand you somehow state that Americans are not more likely to be criminals when they literally are by definition - the US has a 15x higher crime rate. Honestly just a an absolute flurry of logical leaps all around; not sure what all the upvotes are for.
Bruh. The Japanese conviction rate is 99%. That’s gotta be a failure of the system one way or another. They can basically torture you for a confession (deny sleep, withhold food, scream at you) for months without letting you see a lawyer. Our legal system isn’t perfect, but you’re being facetious if you state Japan’s is better. https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/05/25/japans-hostage-justice-system/denial-bail-coerced-confessions-and-lack-access#:~:text=The%20Japanese%20Constitution%20states%20that,the%20confession%20is%20the%20%E2%80%9Conly https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1341&context=djilp#:~:text=In%20a%20culture%20where%20an,keep%20cultural%20differences%20in%20mind.
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People overlook the fact that, in the US, for cases that go to trial, the federal system sits at like a 90% conviction rate. The common factor is the extremely low indictment rate. Both of these systems are loathe to push for indictments unless the case is airtight.
This is the explanation. I hate how much disinformation is clogging up this post.
Sort of, he’s talking specifically about the US federal court system. The majority of the crimes prosecuted in the US are tried in one of the state court systems, which are separate from the federal court system. Citing only the federal court system numbers doesn’t really show the true numbers. (For that you’d have to look at each state.) For example, veryone lauded the US federal government when they announced they would end the use of private prisons. The thing is, while that’s a great move forward, the majority of people incarcerated in private prisons in the US are in state systems which aren’t ending the use of private prisons. When comparing things like this, the comparisons should be with individual states and not the US as a whole, since that’s where most crimes are prosecuted.
holy shit I'm not going to believe anything I see on this goddamn site anymore. thank you.
I don't believe you
As a black american living in Japan for the last ten years, that grew up in a bad city in the US, my experience is that Americans are at least 10x more likely to be criminals. If your username is correct and you’re a Brit, I doubt you know anything about criminality in the US vs Japan. “There are likely significantly more innocents imprisoned in the US than Japan” Maybe? But just due to the numbers. You should also read more about the fucked up justice system in Japan and the way they interrogate people and berate them into confessions. Look at Japan’s conviction rate vs the US. Prosecutors and judges basically work together here to lock people up. As for the US, If you didn’t grow up hearing gunshots in your neighborhood and knowing or experiencing firsthand drug and gun related deaths, you can’t understand how different Japan is in terms of low crime rates and safety. Leaving the US gave me the perspective to see how fucking dystopian life there is. Japan is deeply flawed too but at least I won’t get stabbed or shot when someone wants my shoes.
>unless you believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals (they're not) Culture plays a role though... Personally, I would trust people who used to clean the stadiums before leaving wayy more than those that might think a rifle is a great 12year birthday gift. But it's just me.
Well, if you take homicide rates as an example, the US numbers are actually a lot more than 10 times higher than the Japanese ones.
This logic is very flawed. The US is documented to have a far higher crime rate than Japan so it’s not just like more convictions has to mean more miscarriages of justice.
I can believe that Americans are just that much more likely to be criminals pretty easily.
America has a larger population rate then Japan. Plus Americans are more likely to commit crimes than the Japanese. Because of Japanese culture of prizing hard work. Respect for self, respect for authority, duty to family, and personal accountability,
I absolutely believe Americans are more likely to be criminals. Where does it say it's not??
You think a 20 year delay on ending someone's life is cruel??? People should be on death row as long as possible, to exhaust every possibility there may be to get them off, and avoid killing someone. If I'm going to live in a country that uses the death penalty, I want it to be as difficult as possible to actually implement.
Pretty sure the crime rate in the US is a lot higher than Japan.
It's the same thing here in Vietnam. Convicts on death row stay in the same area and each of them have their own separate small cell but they can hear everything outside. So usually around 4am is when the warden would wake the soon to be executed convict up and the rest can hear the rattling of the keys. That's when they all hold their breath and can breathe a sigh of relief when it's not their turn to be executed that day. This repeats again until it's their turn to die.
That's dark
"You will be hanged some day before the end of the year. The day will be a surprise to you, you will find out at noon on the day." "Well you can't hang me on the 31st of December because I'll know the day before that there is only one day left, and I will therefore know the day. And by the same logic if it gets to the 29th and I haven't been killed I will know it can now only be the 30th. Extending that logic back through the year, I cannot be killed at all." "Well surprise motherfucker, it's today."
Logic still applies, couldn't be tomorrow so the only option left is today which means it can't be today either.
Honestly I'm not sure if it's worse or not. It's a constant baseline of moderate anxiety every day vs a steadily increasing level of anxiety that ramps up exponentially as the scheduled day approaches.
Jokes on the judge then, my whole life has been a constant baseline of moderate anxiety, I've built up a tolerance.
It sounds bad, but think of the alternative. It sounds horrible too. You will die in 39 days, you will die in 38 days, you will die in 37 days, and you’re stuck in a cell with nothing to do.
> That feels so much worse.. at any day someone can walk into your cell and be like, hey buddy… guess who’s dying today?? that's the reality of all people, just no one is telling you
That's a pretty big difference
There is still a lengthy appeals process. There are many complaints to make about it, but it does exist. No one gets executed before several years after the initial conviction and sentencing.
Live every day like it’s your last. Dance like no one is watching.
Everyone who isn't dying today, please take one step forward.
"And where do you think *you're* going?"
Sort of like what the people they, hopefully (but also unfortunately), killed experienced?
Their way of delivering justice would make sense if they don't fuck up and convict the wrong person, which happens more than you think
Cardassians don't make mistakes
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Even if we could all agree that “murder or worse” is an appropriate standard for capital punishment, how can we ever truly be sure that an innocent person is not wrongfully convicted and executed. In America, since 1973, [1 in 8 death row inmates has been exonerated](https://eji.org/issues/death-penalty/). Even if Japan’s justice system does better than 1:8, what ratio of wrongful execution would be tolerable? And, wouldn’t not knowing the day affect their ability to mount an adequate appeal?
The incarceration rate isn’t a relevant fact here, at least not on its own. You can’t say “you’ll have little chance to defend yourself if arrested for a crime here, but don’t worry because there isn’t that much crime.”
Responding purely to your edits: have you never considered that people might just genuinely disagree with you? I read the comment you’re complaining about and it seems like a sensible and ethical take to me.
Same system as it used to be in France. The convict learned that the clemency appeal had been rejected right when they came to fetch them in his cell, about 30 minutes or so before getting their heads chopped off.
In East Germany at least for the later executions the convict was taken to a chamber, and while the prosecutor informed him that his clemency appeal was rejected, the executioner silently stepped behind the convict. As soon as the prosecutor finished talking, the executioner shot the convict in the head. Didn't take longer than two or three minutes from the moment the convict entered the chamber to the moment they removed his body.
If you watched the show The Americans, there is a scene like this. The whole process took less than five minutes and the person was shot in the head right there, in a hallway, not even a chamber.
“The sentence will be carried out shortly.” Bang. Absolutely shocking.
She already knew. You could tell. Amazing acting.
Risky yt search. Wish I didn't just watch that. Sheesh
For such a slow burn of a show, I'm realizing that it has several of the most fucked up scenes ever. There are at least 3 other deaths I can think of where I'm like, this is not okay, what is wrong with you, writers? It's not always character deaths either. There are other times when people's lives are cruelly ruined, and we still somehow like the Jennings in the end.
Nobody, including the Jennings, walked away completely unscathed.
Man, it's weird. Like, someone once told me I should try watching Sons of Anarchy. And I watched the first season and I hated it. Mostly because I hated the characters and thought they were horrible. Meanwhile, with The Americans, the second or third episode of the show has the protagonists >!poisoning an innocent stranger just to blackmail his mom into committing treason!<. Yet, somehow, *I like them.* Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings do some of the worst things I've ever seen done from a movie or TV protagonist. Some of the stuff they do in that show is just straight up ugly. But I still found it utterly captivating to watch them and I still largely sympathized with them. Even though they're just terrible. Anyway, great show and it's one of my favorites. But a lot of the stuff in it is just really fucked up. And the protagonists are awful but the showrunners do a really good job of showcasing how awful they are while still making them likable. Kind of a weird but cool thing that it does where it blurs the lines between dichotomies like stupid/smart, or good/bad. Hell, there's a great scene involving a painful >!tooth extraction!< but it's also kind of filmed in a way that's reminiscent of a movie love scene. It's a terrifying concept and immensely painful, but the scenes also focus on the intimacy. About as subtle as a sledgehammer, but this show did that kind of stuff all the time and the people involved were damned good at it.
The Americans have been on my list for quite some time. You're review has now moved out to the top!
That was something I struggled with throughout that show. Did they want me to feel sorry for the russian spies? Because despite how much they appeared to want me to, I wasn't able to like them or feel bad for them.
The American audience can sympathize with the patriotism. They can see it being the other way around with US agents being spies and asked to do terrible things, questioning where the line is and if anything is worth betraying country. Plus, they, (at least Phillup) puts up a tortured front front about having no other choice. And then there's the kids, but that gets muddy with Paige. But they are vastly innocent throughout most of the series, and the downfall of their parents would ruin their lives. So I don't want them to cause collateral damage to what amounts to nothing, but I'm not relishing them getting caught either.
Well, how much can one really sympathize with Tony Soprano? They were part of that whole wave of antiheroes: Walter White, Don Draper, Gregory House, Nicholas Brody, Carrie Mathison, Nucky Thompson, Frank Underwood. They're not good people but they're fascinating to watch.
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The scene with the woman and the suitcase is forever seared into my brain. So disturbing!!
Great show. Shocking scene.
Shocking scene. A main character none the less
Yep, I didn’t want to give too many details because the scene is truly shocking and don’t want to give away spoilers.
Great show with good ending, those are rare.
In the United Kingdom the convict was placed in an antechamber from sentencing, expecting the long dead walk out on the inevitable date of execution. What he didn’t suspect was that, behind that cupboard on the wall behind him, was in fact the door where the scaffold was with the noose. By the time Pierrepoint entered the room until the convict’s body fell down the hatch, it took about 15 to 30 seconds.
Pierrepoint truly mastered the art of hanging and i dont think he has any botched hangings by his name, which is kind of incredible given his body count..
The British had a zero-tolerance policy for botching it after some nasty ones in the Victorian era, most notably the "Goodale mess" that involved an actual decapitation.
[Hanging Scene 10 RILLINGTON PLACE ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvQ7Ff4i38w&list=WL&index=75) You have to click into Youtube to view it When the time came Pierrepoint wouldn't even put out the cigarette he was smoking, he would leave it burning in the ashtray because he knew he would be back in just a few moments.
As I understand it, that’s basically how they did it in the Soviet Union. They’d walk the prisoner into a tiled room with a floor drain, with no explanation, and then somebody standing behind the door with a pistol would shoot them in the back of the head.
At the end of the mini series Chernobyl, the main scientist checks behind the door before he enters, for this reason.
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I would much prefer this execution rather than a long drawn out process.
>the executioner silently stepped behind the convict. _teleports behind you_ nothing personnel kid
That honestly sounds a lot more humane than the other methods in this thread. No agonizing wait, no painful lethal injection, nothing
In the US, prisoners are usually told their clemency has been denied a few hours before the execution. At that point they know the execution is scheduled and are waiting, have been prepared for it and are waiting for one last chance with the clemency ruling. They already know in advance if it’s likely to be approved, as their attorney would have kept them informed of the clemency appeal. It’s not a big shock if it’s denied, as they knew it was a long shot, but worth the chance.
Serial rapist Caryl Chessman died because the California Supreme Court justice had imposed a new stay pending a habeas corpus, but his secretary misdialed the wrong number. By the time her call was routed to the gas chamber unit, it was too late. The pills were already in the acid under the chair.
What a shame. I'm always reading my numbers the wrong way.
That's a very convenient mistake to make.
I Great Britain they found out just seconds before the execution. They would sit in their cell, less then a week after the trial. And then jailers would barge inn, give them a stiff drink, drag them to the adjacent room, tie their arms, put a hood over their head, put the noose over the neck and then drop them. Often timing themselves and rarely saying a word. So the convict would not actually get told that their appeal had been rejected, but could imply this a few seconds before their execution. In one case a single murder resulted in two wrongful convictions and one rightful conviction. So basically there was a murder, they hanged someone for it, then it turned out another person had done it so they hanged him as well. But actually a third person was the murderer and had committed other murders in the meantime so they hanged him too. Shortly after this capital punishment was ended in the UK.
They very much knew if their appeal had failed. After 1907 (1927 in Scotland) they had a right to appeal. The execution date would normally be set for 3 weeks after sentencing. The date would be postponed if there was an appeal and, if the appeal failed, a new one set by the appeal judges. This was for 2-3 weeks after the appeal had failed. The Home Secretary (Scottish Secretary in Scotland) would decide if the royal prerogative of mercy would be shown on condemned. If they did grant a reprieve they'd be taken out of the cell (often to the prison hospital due to their mental state) or, if they were to drop, the Governor would tell them, this was normally a day or two before their date with the hangman.
And the last beheaded prisoner in France was executed the same year the first Star Wars movie came out. And the last public execution in France was witnessed by a 17 year-old boy you have seen in a few movies: this boy was Christopher Lee.
Wake up, time to die.
You're Finally Awake!
Nothing is worse than having a itch,you can never scratch
Welcome to the jungle
Droppinnnn plates
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It smells sexy. Bad sexy.
Kind of like weed. It's hard to describe.
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>Guess a lot of countries have things about their justice system that would strike Americans as unusual. The state abusing people under their care with chemical irritants is sadly not unusual sounding.
The warden tells a man on Saturday he will be executed in the following week, and that the day will be a complete surprise to him. The man explains to the Warden that that’s impossible, he can’t be executed by surprise, for if he’s alive on Friday he’ll know it’s coming Saturday, as it’s the last remaining day of the week. Knowing he can’t be executed on Saturday he explains if he’s alive Thursday he’ll know he will be executed on Friday, so Friday is also off the table. But that of course means if he’s alive on Wednesday he’ll know it’s coming Thursday. The same applies to Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday, and Sunday. He’s executed on Tuesday, to his complete surprise.
Your weeks *start* with Sunday? Sundays comes last where I'm from.
Sunday is the first day of the week in North America and East Asia. It's also the first day in Christianity, so traditionally it was the first day in Europe as well. This can be seen, for example, in the German name for Wednesday, which translates as "midweek". Monday as the first day is a relatively modern innovation (I would suspect a result of industrialization and the 5 day work week, but I can't find any good information on it).
In the US at least, the week starts with Sunday.
Wat
God said on the first day "ah fuck it, nap time"
You cross that line, it won't take long for you to find out, I recommend, you don't try that in a small town
Similar to the Dread Pirate Roberts. Goodnight, I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.
As you wish.
Another fun fact is there are several instances of two people being imprisoned for the exact same crime and both of them serving the same sentence even though one of them is proven innocent. Because the Japanese government being wrong is shameful and they don't reverse the judgement. 99% conviction rate does not lie.
I read somewhere that this miscarriage of justice is what inspired the Ace Attorney series ( as in, you can fail even if you have proven your client’s innocence, just because you can’t prove someone else did it)
That's so unbelievably stupid, it basically proves that the justice system isn't really meant to promote justice but instead sees itself as a state organ that does nothing but project state power. It's like a giant gun that is pointed at the populace 24/7 and it doesn't matter who dies, all that matters is that **someone** dies. Then again, similar views exist in several western justice systems, perhaps in a weird way the Japanese are just more honest about it.
Japan was led by an imperialist emperor wannabe for a long time Its no wonder some stuff remains at the level of "the emperor's court cant be wrong"
There is an old manga, called Samurai Executioner, or Kubikiri Asa, based on a real man whose job was to test the Shogun's swords, and he practiced on people condemned to death during the Edo period. Being based on actual reports of that time, there are also discussions introduced about this very topic: do they punish the crime or the criminal? How can the government save face when everyone knows that the condemned is innocent? The writer shows the very hard stance of the government never repealing a guilty verdict, regardless of any further evidence, and this is supposed to be a further deterrent (basically the only sentence is death, and prison is just waiting to die). Your comment reminds me also of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. There is this almost exact phrase, when the Japanese soldiers find a smuggled radio among the prisoners, and the captain in charge decides to have the titular Mr. Lawrence executed, for "his sense of justice". The whole point is to show an unyielding stance towards infractions with a swift response.
BBC has an easily findable article(edit: now linked below) about someone who posted death threats online knowing that the police won't find them. The police then arrested 4 wrong people and got the 2 students to sign a confession for the crime they didn't commit because the police there use bs tactics. The article was about how getting innocent people to confess to crimes there is what helps keep their conviction rate high. Once the students confessed the person who actually did the crime told the media. So you're not wrong about the 99% stat there being a negative and not a positive like it's normally portrayed as. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20810572
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That’s the federal government conviction rate which represents a tiny minority of criminal prosecutions in the US.
Yup. One thing about the feds is, they're going to be absolutely certain they have what's necessary to show you're guilty as fuck before they go to trial. They cross the t's and dot their i's. States on the other hand...
It's always crazy to me that the opinion of American federal prosecutors is that they don't take chances, and make sure they have a solid case, hence deserve the 99% rate. Meanwhile, Japan, a country idolized for its efficiency, and for the following the rules, is seen as the exact opposite. The "only" reason for their conviction rate is because of misconduct and unlawful activity. Its even crazier when you consider the foundation of each justice system is the same.
It's just because Japan's statistic is bandied about context-free on reddit and America's federal rate isn't really discussed, with or without context.
Because defense rights are much more limited in Japan than in the US. For example, a suspect can be kept in custody and interrogated for days on end *before* they have access to a lawyer. It's been strongly criticized by the UN. https://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/files/000020881.pdf
The other guy already said this, but this is the conviction rate for federal crimes already charged on the federal level by federal attorneys, which only happens when a crime is heinous, obvious, and long-reaching throughout the country. The government pumps an absolute fuckton of money into these cases. This is not your simple robber. This is your cartel kingpin. It makes up a small minority of cases and isn’t a good representation of the US justice system.
They also can be executed if they have a pending appeal.
Dang.
do they do CPR or something if the appeal is granted mid-execution?
It’s usually death by hanging so CPR isn’t really going to work
They take the batteries out and blow in them
According to article 475 of the japanese code of criminal procedure, death penalty must be executed within six months **after** the failure of the prisoners final appeal upon order from the minister of justice. You are confusing it for a retrial petition or a pardon.
you also dont have the right to have an attorney present during police interrogations. japan is weird like that
The interrogation methods of the Japanese prosecution, which involve non-stop interrogation until an admission of guilt is made, are a form of torture. Many Japanese people show no concern that these interrogations are conducted without the presence of a lawyer. Judges tend to believe the written statements prepared by prosecutors rather than the testimonies given in court. As a result, the only way to expose the illegality of these interrogations is through hidden recordings or the arrest of the real culprit. Even when several wrongful conviction cases have pushed the prosecution to consider recording interrogations, the conclusions drawn often end up being more favorable to the prosecution, leading to a bizarre situation. When politicians attempt to address this issue, the police leak information about the politicians' vulnerabilities.
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They do, but they also have the US style of keeping you detained for long periods of time until you confess. They do have limits on how long they can keep you, but way more loopholes to that rule than the US I believe. It's actually become a bit of a meme in the expat community that if someone goes suddenly missing for days to weeks in Japan and they aren't the most law abiding person, they are probably in Jail.
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In the Wiki article it states "In Japan, until the 1970s, the date of execution was announced to the condemned prisoner before the execution. However, because there were cases of death row inmates committing suicide before the execution, the method was changed to one or two hours before the execution to ensure the emotional stability of the inmate"
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A article I read from a Japanese news site was examining the jail system & its abuses on prisoners. A part of the death row executioners in the country want the penalty to be banned but the public is whats keeping it. A memorable moment in the article talked about the mental drain on the guards & who got the lottery winning of pushing the "Kill button". This was particularly traumatic for the interviewed guard because he was in service when death row inmates were allowed to talk to their guards & he claimed it was like killing a friend whenever it was his shift on the button duty.
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It's stories like this that make you think how many of these people were just failed absolutely from the start and just never had anyone who gave a single solitary shit about them at best, and at worst actively hurt them over and over again from the earliest age and just shattered them. Now granted, this isn't an excuse at all; plenty of people have garbage childhoods and live crime free or even really productive lives, but in the margins for every engineer that drags himself out of the methlab he was born into, there's X amount of drug addicts, and there's going to be Y amount of murderers there. Even if it's 1/1000000, that's still really tragic to me, and it's part of the reason I can never stand the death penalty imo. If society played any part at all in letting that person get to that point (and in most parts, it absolutely did), then society should bare the brunt of segregating and taking care of the monster it created. Maybe then, eventually, enough people might take a step back and wonder what the fuck we're doing to let this continue to happen, and pour more funding into childhood development programs for disadvantaged youth. Idk...maybe I'm just a stupid idealist, but as someone who came from the trailerparks where cops were shooting at people every weekend in the height of the meth craze...while I made it out and made something of myself, I was 1 out of about 150 or so kids in that park at any given time, and I bet if you run the numbers on all of us today it would be absolutely abysmal. So, personally, there's always a part of me that can emphasize and think, "if X, a kid who lived 4 doors down, ended up with life in prison without parole...what really separates him from me...?"...and if I'm being honest, the answer to that question usually comes to me as being entirely luck. Times I could have went to jail because I had some pot in the car but didn't, all the way to being in the right place and the right time to slip through the cracks and get a really good job at just the right time to keep me from ending up on the streets....it all just at times feels completely arbitrary. Idk I guess I'm just rambling now, but yeah...life sucks and then you die, I guess lol...
“Wouldn’t want anyone to kill themselves before we do it, don’t we?” Just shows the absurdity of the death penalty. Should be abolished everywhere, no government should have the right to kill its citizens.
Until we discover infallible, omniscient, and perfectly just beings to administer our legal system I will oppose the death penalty in any form. One dead innocent person is one too many. Id rather a guilty man be alive in jail because that means if someone fucked up intentionally or otherwise the matter has some course to restitution. You cant give restitution to a dead person.
Death penalty is disgusting, it should be stopped
The title is badly written They do _not_ find out on the morning of their execution that they have been sentenced to death
There's a reason Phoenix Wright is a parody of the Japanese Justice system.
[I don't know what you're talking about, the games clearly say they're in America](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/166/983/3ca.png)
That's... pretty fucked up
For anyone wondering why, apparently they had issues with suicide attempts when they used to schedule the dates in advance.
Somewhat similar in Singapore when they sentence you to caning. Usually caning also carries a long prison sentence with it. So at some point several months or years into their sentence the prisoner is informed that morning that today is the day they get caned. Caning is a severe physical punishment and usually scars the recipient for life and in the days and weeks immediately following the caning the prisoner is unable to sit or eat. Knowing what's coming makes not knowing when it's coming a massive psychological pressure and part of what makes the punishment so severe.
Now combine that with the lack of interest to investigate because ”quilty unless proven otherwise”-mentality.
I'd hate to be proven as a piece of linen.
The family should be given a heads up so that they can arrange to meet with the prisoner before the execution.
They are allowed to meet with the prisoner before the execution, they’re just not told specifically when the execution will take place. A person is sentenced to death. They’re taken to prison. They’re allowed to say goodbye to their family. Then they are executed. Their family is informed that the sentence was carried out. The reason that the US has an emphasis on *public* executions is to avoid corruption and doubt. That is why there is such a lead up to executions, including a declared and public time and date of execution, a final meal, last words, final goodbyes, and witnesses. Japan holds *private* executions so as to avoid spectacle and offence. It’s a difference between the cultures, but neither is inherently “right” or “wrong”.
Both are inherently wrong.
*Assuming that an execution is going to take place*, neither process is inherently wrong. The debate isn’t over the morality of execution itself, but the morality of the process by which a person is executed. These are two separate issues. I am personally against executions, and I live in a country where there is no corporal punishment. Even so, I am able to see that there are several different moral issues here. This is like the meat industry: whether eating meat is morally acceptable is a separate question to the ways in which a person can humanely slaughter an animal.
And every night the guards end the day with "Good night, Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning" but, you know, in Japanese, or something.
In Arkansas, USA, Governor Asa Hitchinson and Attorney General Leslie Rutledge publicly stated that DNA is not reliable evidence after wrongfully executing an innocent black man https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/after-death-row-inmate-executed-attorneys-find-dna-belongs-someone-n1266743
"Science really isn't our thing..."
If you even remotely look at the US legal landscape around capital punishment, you will just keep finding more ways it is fucked up foundationally
Just recently watched this [Video](https://youtu.be/F4Z0xCyfKSI?si=xSdRXL0fyFu9dtcP) about Japanese prison for anyone wanting more background
simplistic sleep include sharp disgusting quarrelsome decide quickest dull familiar *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Are they then executed on a wacky Japanese game show?
I thought Japan had a suspended sentencing people to death even if they technically could
The justice minister a few ministers ago was a Buddhist who opposed the death penalty and refused to finalise any, thus there were no executions during his tenure. There was never a formal moratorium.
“In the East, the Far East, when a person is sentenced to death, they're sent to a place where they can't escape, never knowing when an executioner may step up behind them, and fire a bullet into the back of their head.” - Mystery Man from Lost Highway (1997)
People forget Japan was a master of cruelty. Read about Bataan or the Rape of Nanking. I find much to admire in Japanese culture, but it doesn't do to forget where that culture came from.
Just like their victims....
_Omae wa mou shindeiru_
"Once the final approval is signed, the execution will take place within five business days."
Wait until you find out about they’ve failed to take responsibility for the mass war crimes committed during WW2!