Toyama trial shows need for interrogation system reform
(From The Japan Times Oct. 14 issue)

富山のえん罪事件再審判決

In a retrial of a man who had been found guilty of rape, the Takaoka branch of the Toyama District Court acquitted him Oct. 10. Noting that his pretrial oral statements on which investigators had based their case against him were not trustworthy, the court ruled that the man is not the perpetrator.

The police are most to blame for putting Mr. Hiroshi Yanagihara through a prison ordeal. They forced confessions so they could bring charges against him. But prosecutors, judges and lawyers involved must reflect on their conduct because they failed to prevent the filing of false charges and contributed to the process that led to his wrongful imprisonment. There were occasions in which a judge and a lawyer heard the accused deny his involvement.

Although the court found the man innocent in the retrial, to his and our great disappointment it did not try to get to the bottom of why the police arrested the man and forwarded his case to the public prosecutor's office.

In January 2002, a woman was raped in Himi, Toyama Prefecture. An attempted rape followed in the same city in March that year. In April, the police questioned a taxi driver, Mr. Yanagihara, then 40. At first he denied his involvement, but on the third day of the interrogation, he reversed his statement and was arrested. The Takaoka branch of the Toyama District Public Prosecutor's Office indicted him on charges of rape, trespassing and attempted rape. Before prosecutors, the man again stated that he had not committed the crimes and, again, later reversed his statement.

Throughout the original trial, the defendant accepted the facts related to the crimes presented by the prosecution. The Takaoka branch of the Toyama District Court found him guilty and sentenced him to three years' imprisonment in November 2002. After spending about two years in Fukui Prison, he was released on parole in January 2005.

But a 52-year-old man who was arrested by Tottori Prefectural Police in August 2006 confessed to the Toyama rape cases in November that year. The police search for corroborative evidence on the basis of this man's confessions showed that he was the likely culprit in the Toyama cases. To establish Mr. Yanagihara's innocence, the public prosecutor's office called for a retrial.

In acquitting the taxi driver, the Oct. 10 ruling said the confessions by the second man are trustworthy because he took police investigators to the scene of the rape. It also said footprints of his sneakers left at the Tottori s cene are identical to those left at the scenes of the sexual assaults in Himi.

It is likely that the police were misled by the rape victim's choice of Mr. Yanagihara as the perpetrator when presented with photographs of possible suspects. The Toyama Prefectural Police then tried to get confessions from him that fit their crime scenario. Although the man denied his involvement, investigators pressed him to confess to the crimes. According to him, he was forced to hold a photograph of his dead mother while being interrogated. A police officer also grabbed his right wrist to make him draw a map of the crime scenes.

Under the assumption that Mr. Yanagihara was the culprit, the police made the deplorable mistake of ignoring material evidence.

To show that the defendant was forced to make false confessions, the defense counsel asked the court twice to summon police investigators to the retrial. But the court rejected the requests. It is unpardonable that the court thus destroyed any chance of examining what the police did during the interrogation and investigation. Prosecutors did not make any effort to clarify how and why the taxi driver was falsely charged. The Toyama case points to the need to tape record and video-tape the entire interrogation process and to ensure the presence of a lawyer during interrogations.

富山県のえん罪事件の再審判決公判で、富山地裁高岡支部は10 日、強姦罪などで有罪となり約2年間の服役後に無実と判明した被告柳原浩さんに無罪を言い渡した。裁判長は、真犯人の存在を指摘し、「柳原さんの自白に信用性がなく、犯人でないことは明らか」と述べた。

自白を強要した警察の責任は最も重いが、事件に関係した検事、判事、弁護士も、えん罪を防げなかったことで反省しなければならない。柳原さんの無罪は確定したが、裁判所は容疑者の逮捕、送検に至る経緯について真実に迫ることはしなかった。

柳原さん（当時40歳のタクシー運転手）は02年4月、富山県氷見市で同年1月と3月に起きた女性暴行と同未遂の事件で、事情聴取された。当初は関与を否定していた柳原さんは、3日目に容疑を認め、逮捕された。

柳原さんは裁判で、強姦、不法住居侵入、強姦未遂の罪を認め、富山地裁高岡支部は懲役3年の有罪判決を言い渡した。柳原さんは05年1月に福井刑務所を仮出所した。その後、別件で逮捕された男が06年8月に、問題の女性暴行と同未遂事件について犯行を自供した。

事件の被害者が、犯人の可能性のある数人の男の写真を見せられ、柳原さんが犯人に似ていると言ったため、警察が惑わされたようだ。

弁護団は、自白が強制されたことを証明するため、2度にわたり捜査員の証言を求めたが、裁判所はこれを却下し、警察の捜査について精査する機会を逃したのは許しがたい。検察当局も、えん罪事件が起きた経緯を明らかにする努力を怠った。この事件は、取り調べの様子を全部録音・録画し、取り調べに弁護士を同席させる必要を示している。