Not Guilty
That was the verdict over the killing of Lucie Blackman in Japan.
It’s a tough one this… from what I understand, the evidence was somewhat lax in the case of Blackman’s death. However, taking into account the sentencing for all the other incidents and the offer for ‘condolence money’, one does have to wonder.
I think part of the issue in this, is that once again the Japanese police have let us down (I reckon). It seems that Japan’s 98% conviction rate is pretty much down to the fact that most people end up just confessing to whatever they did wrong. It just seems to me the Japanese police is unable to handle situations where they have to investigate stuff!
Who knows.
2007 Apr 24 Gavin
I guess there’s something like a 87% rate of confessions in the event of arrest. As you mention, the conviction rate is close to 98%…which seems to pretty much mean everyone confesses and out of the 13% who don’t, few of those go to trial.
I don’t think that judges in Japan make statements with their rulings, but here I kind of wish it had been one; the police and prosecutors should have had this guy and pretty much everyone knows he did it. They need to do something about investigative skills and stop relying on confessions…