The Story Of Iwao Hakamada.
This is the sad story of a retired professional boxer who got accused of a crime he never committed. The Japanese man is the youngest one out of his six siblings, Iwao grew up in Hamamatsu where his home is too.
Hakamada spends almost 50 years in death row inside a small cell. His family was poor, but despite all the difficulties, they were a happy family.
Hideko, Iwao’s 86-year-old sister, says his 83-year-old brother suffers from a mental disease because of many years spent in prison. Hideko says Iwao is always calm and may make a word or two in most conversations.
While they were little children, they would go fishing during summer and roast garlic cloves in autumn. Later on, his sister got married and Iwao worked in a gym. At 23, he started his career as a featherweight fighter and retired to get a job as a worker in a factory dealing with soybean processing.
Doom fell on him around the year of 1966 whereby Iwao’s boss and family of 2 children got murdered in cold blood. The police took him as a suspect for questioning concerning the murder done. The reporters reported on false things, but they set Iwao free since there was no evidence linking him to the murder yet.
The police were desperate to get a suspect and therefore made up evidence and forced Iwao to say he committed the crime. They beat and threatened him making him admit to all the charges placed on him earning him a sentence to death.
Justice System In The Country Of Japan.
In comparison with other developed states, the country of Japan puts a few persons in confinements. In the United States, the accused need to be quiet during interrogation, but they may get a lawyer during the process. People also may make deals with the authorities to reduce their charges harshly.
Japan, one is to remain quiet, and the accused can get interrogated without having a legal representative such as a lawyer. However, in the year 2016, the plea bargains were available. The high conviction rate is because of prosecutors going after cases in which they believe would cause a verdict that is guilty.
Mark Ramseyer, a law professor at Harvard University, says, “There are very few prosecutors in Japan. They are massively overworked. Given the workload, they focus first on the slam dunk, guilty-as-sin cases. They don’t have time for the ‘maybe he did it, maybe he didn’t case,”
The Present Life Of Iwao Hakamada.
The two siblings reunited, but Iwao is not mentally stable. He wakes up very early in the morning to go for a stroll with a helper. He has not seen his son since they took him to prison and still, there is no clarity to who killed the victims.
The sister to Iwao promises to clear Iwao’s name and change the people’s way of thinking about people charged with the death penalty.
More:
