July 16, 2007
Japan Learns Dreaded Task of Jury Duty
Japan Learns Dreaded Task of Jury Duty - New York TimesAfter it was all over, only a single juror said he wanted to serve on a real trial. The others said even the mock trial had left them stressed and overwhelmed. Under the proposed system, randomly chosen citizens will sit on the bench next to judges, decide cases together and hand out sentences. Supporters predict that the direct involvement of ordinary citizens in the judicial process will have far-reaching consequences for Japan’s democracy.
Robert E. Precht, an American defense lawyer and a co-director of the juries and democracy program at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center of the University of Montana, has been giving talks on the American jury system in meetings with judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers and ordinary citizens. Changing the attitudes of a public used to being passively governed was proving the greatest challenge, he said.
“D-Day is going to happen in May 2009, and I think people are seriously going to start panicking next year, as citizens actually face the very real possibility of being summoned, and then have to go into this very strange environment, speak in front of authority figures and actually be questioned about their own opinions,” Mr. Precht said. “And I’m concerned that’s going to freak people out.”
whoa
Ms. Kimura strongly supports the new system. “But, really, I wondered, can Japanese really express what they believe in,” she said. “Can they really express their opinions?”“To this day, we value harmony,” she said, and, referring to a haiku by Basho, Japan’s greatest poet, she added, “In Japan, to not speak is considered a virtue.”
interesting
Critics say the judges will lead the deliberations, deciding what issues to debate; the jurors will depend on the judges to hand out sentences because of their lack of knowledge of the penal code. What is more, the new system will not address more basic problems in the Japanese criminal justice system: the authorities’ overreliance on confessions, sometimes forced; the absence of discovery, which allows the prosecution to withhold information; and a general presumption of guilt that leads to a 99.8 percent conviction rate in criminal cases.
No discovery??
Posted by TY at July 16, 2007 10:16 AM
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