Posted on 06/16/2008 9:43:25 PM PDT by LibWhacker
TOKYO (AFP) — Japan on Tuesday executed three people including notorious serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, a fetishist convicted of murdering four little girls and eating some of their bodies, officials said.
Miyazaki, 45, was nicknamed the "killer nerd" for his obsession with sexual cartoons and pornography. But defence lawyers contended he was mentally ill and could not be held fully responsible for his actions.
Japan is the only major industrialised nation other than the United States to apply the death penalty and has been stepping up the pace of executions, which enjoy wide public support.
"We are carrying out executions by selecting the people whom we can execute with a feeling of confidence and responsibility," Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama told a news conference.
The executions come one week after Japan saw a deadly stabbing spree in a Tokyo neighbourhood known for nerd culture, carried out by a troubled young auto worker who sent messages of despair over the Internet.
Miyazaki was arrested in July 1989 while trying to take naked pictures of a girl outdoors and the details that emerged from his case stunned Japan.
He confessed to having killed four girls, aged between four and seven, in Tokyo and its suburbs and eating some of the remains of two of them.
Miyazaki mutilated the bodies of the victims, slept next to the corpses and drank their blood.
He sent letters to the media under a woman's name claiming responsibility for the crimes and sent a box containing the remains of a slaughtered girl to her family.
"The atrocious murder of four girls to satisfy his sexual desire leaves no room for leniency," Chief Justice Tokiyasu Fujita said in January 2006 when he upheld his death sentence.
"The crime is cold-blooded and cruel," he said.
When police arrested Miyazaki, they found about 6,000 videotapes, many of which contained horrific footage, at his home in Saitama prefecture, near Tokyo.
During the nearly two-decade judicial process, Miyazaki never uttered a word of remorse to the victims and their families. He cryptically said that a "rat man" -- a cartoonish image of which he drew -- committed the crimes.
He also distanced himself from his family. When his father, unable to come to terms with what his son did, jumped into a river to his death in 1994, Miyazaki wrote to a publisher: "I feel refreshed."
But court-appointed psychiatrists agreed with defence lawyers that Miyazaki was mentally ill.
One finding was that Miyazaki suffered from a multiple personality disorder, while a second said he was schizophrenic.
Hirokazu Hasegawa, a clinical psychologist who saw Miyazaki in 2006, said the killer believed his crimes would resurrect his grandfather, who died three months before the grandson committed his first crime in 1988.
"What he told me lastly was 'Please tell the world that I'm a gentle man', " Hasegawa said at the time.
The death penalty enjoys wide support in Japan, despite criticism from the country's human rights groups and lawyers, as well as the European Union.
Japan had a de facto moratorium on executions for 15 months until 2006 as the then justice minister, Seiken Sugiura, said the death penalty went against his Buddhist beliefs.
Since then, Japan has executed 23 people. More than 100 people remain on death row.
The other two inmates who were executed Tuesday were both convicted murders, Shinji Mutsuda and Yoshio Yamasaki, a justice ministry statement said.
If he had only come to California — he would have been set free after a few months in jail....
Must be a communist author to conveniently forget China executes and is industrialized.
Is it a coincidence that the two countries in the free world that impose the death penalty also happen to be the world’s two largest economies.
So what if he is mentally ill! Such arguments are ludicrous in horrific cases like this. One could take as given that a serial killing pedophile cannibal is not right in the head.
The sack of filth received justice.
Exactly so. He is very dangerous, has committed dreadful crimes, and shows no remorse. I am very glad to hear that he is gone.
日本＊ピング＊ (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)
Not to sound a little sick but how do they carry it out there?
Hell, if this was in California, the 9th circus would probably hire him as a short order cook.
I never have been able to figure out what being an “industrialised nation” has to do with the death penalty. Must be one of those artsy-fartsy, “intellectual” college kid things.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Not 100% certain, but I believe it’s hanging.
Could you please translate.
That will get the job done.
Good bloody riddance!!!
The only thing about this story that disappoints me is that it took so darn long to stretch his neck.
I was living in Saitama very near Tokyo when this wacko got caught and shall never forget it . My own daughter was only a year and a half at the time and my heart went out to the poor families who lost their kids .
Indeed. A method of execution I wish we would reinstate.
Cheap, easy and the rope requires no electricity to operate so it’s carbon neutral.
Hanging. I approve. Rope is reusable.
And the interesting part of it is that the person will not know he is going to be executed until they take him out of his cell and escort him to the room with the rope hanging from the ceiling.
Nor are executions announced to the public beforehand.
A Samarai sword wielded by someone who knew how to use it would be too kind of an execution for these scum. Let the Yakusa get creative with them instead.
Your children are now safer. I never recieved a contact from Japan. Has Free Republc reached that far?
Samurai sword. Just joking.
Yup. There’s a few of us over here scattered around the country.
It's choking off a source of CO 2. Gore should approve of that.
I am a ham radio operator and love to make contact with distant countrys. The internet makes it easier. But I will still try it with the radio.
Slice and dice.
People who are stable don't commit murder. Catch 22.
omedeto = congratulations
The pace of executions is increasing, no doubt.
I'll never understand why the mentally ill should get a free pass on murder charges. That's totally crazyThat's because criminal law is based on *intention*. If you kill someone on accident, it's not murder it's manslaughter. The idea is, when you're dealing with a wacko there's a really big question if there's intentionality there or not. Do they really know what they're doing is wrong? etc...
You could argue that killing the criminally insane is a boon to society but that opens up a completely different can of worms.
A serial killer from where I live:
Robert Berdella was born January 31, 1949 in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. He ran his own little shop within a Flea Market which catered to the counter culture of Kansas City. Berdella called his shop "Bob's Bizarre Bazaar". He sold morbid and occult novelty items like skulls, masks, books on satanism, witchcraft and other dark occult subjects and various unusual paraphernalia. People found him to be polite and friendly. Just an ordinary guy. He also worked for a local news station, wrote restaurant reviews for the Kansas City Star, and participated in organizing a local community crime watch program.
He also worked for a while as a short order cook in a downtown cafeteria, made a lot of stews.........
Good for Japan. My compliments.
Mr. Justice Fujita is my kind of guy.
LOL!
That little twerp who also went crazy with the hunting knife in downtown Akihabara (Tokyo) a week ago, also a lowlife, no-life, "nerd" hopelessly into manga and video games with no connection to reality nor appreciating humans as actual PEOPLE, will get HIS two I would guess. I give it maybe three or four years for him. He will get the rope as well.There's a reason those guys have no empathy. I'm sure you know this but as background for other freepers: some Japanese parents turn their children into robots, go to school for 8 hours a day, then spend another 2 hours in a club, then off to juku for another 2. Then sleep. No time for play, socialization or becoming a functional human being.The pace of executions is increasing, no doubt.
Another thing, because a boy is expected to study 24/7 his mother does *everything* for him. When these kids go out on their own, they have *no* life skills at all. This is all well and good if they get married or live in a company apartment, but if they fall through the cracks it's a recipe for disaster. They have no concept of any sort of world outside that of a company drone.
As soon as I saw that Kato went to an elite junior high and cracked in high school I could guess his life story immediately.
That's because criminal law is based on *intention*. If you kill someone on accident, it's not murder it's manslaughter. The idea is, when you're dealing with a wacko there's a really big question if there's intentionality there or not. Do they really know what they're doing is wrong? etc...
It is not totally based on intention otherwise we have chaos. Many criminals have claimed mental illness and were executed anyway. The jury did not buy his story
If I'm on a murder jury intention will get no consideration in heinous cases such as this one
It is not totally based on intention otherwise we have chaos. Many criminals have claimed mental illness and were executed anyway. The jury did not buy his storyYes, it is. You mean to kill someone in the heat of passion it's second degree murder. If you plot it in advance it's first degree. If you don't intend to kill a person at all(i.e. you kill them in an accident) it's manslaughter.If I'm on a murder jury intention will get no consideration in heinous cases such as this one
Criminal insanity defenses are based on whether the defendant knew what they were doing was wrong. Your thinking is muddled, just because criminals were judged *not to be insane* does not have any bearing on the law itself or its intention.
I have read a little about that. There are many things I admire about Japan, like the fact that their educational system produces more engineers than lawyers. And the high literacy rate even though written Japanese must be a difficult thing to master. But it seems like Japanese children do not have a chance to live like children.
I think the comic book and video game "culture" among adults is a sign of a society that has become decadent (but I think America is probably more decadent than Japan). A society that is completely decadent cannot defend itself. The fact that Japan executes horrible criminals and this justice has wide appeal is a positive sign. In America the intelligentsia treat horrible criminals like heroes, almost. I think a lot of Western societies have lost the will to survive (I could call this loss of will "terminal decadence"). I am glad that at least Japan evidently has not lost the will to survive.
We have the same murder laws we did 50 and 100 years ago. Yet intent is given more weight than back then because nearly everyone has gotten softer and liberal. You are just going along with the fad. I’ll know if it is a first degree murder case in court. And if on that jury I will give minimum consideration to intent. Especially if your “mentally ill” killer kills a child or multiple victims
I see these Japanese kids, junior high or high school, after "juku" at 11 p.m., noses deep into comic books at the local 7-Eleven or Lawson's conbini. Thick, coke bottle eyeglasses, puny physiques, esconsed in those magazines like there is no outside world. You can try to step around them saying "excuse me" and get no movement out of the way, or maybe just a grunt. If you engaged one eye to eye and said "konnichiwa" or "konbanwa" out of the clear blue sky, they would have absolutely no response to another human being simply saying "hello". These are total robotic kids with NO social skills, getting hyped up on lurid, graphic comics, and then freaking out when they try (and fail) and cannot get real women and fall flat on thier faces. Some carry this densha otoko thing to disastrous ends.
Their dream world overshadows actual reality.
And then some of them go for the survival knife here in Japan; in the US, they go for the automatic weapon as in Virginia Tech.
Freaks. Walking landmines.
I just want to second that.
I have read a little about that. There are many things I admire about Japan, like the fact that their educational system produces more engineers than lawyers. And the high literacy rate even though written Japanese must be a difficult thing to master. But it seems like Japanese children do not have a chance to live like children.Naaah... Japan has its share of no-hopers and thugs too. I should know I used to run into them at the convenience store all the time. Japan has always had manga and porn as well.I think the comic book and video game "culture" among adults is a sign of a society that has become decadent (but I think America is probably more decadent than Japan). A society that is completely decadent cannot defend itself. The fact that Japan executes horrible criminals and this justice has wide appeal is a positive sign. In America the intelligentsia treat horrible criminals like heroes, almost. I think a lot of Western societies have lost the will to survive (I could call this loss of will "terminal decadence"). I am glad that at least Japan evidently has not lost the will to survive.
The difference today, IMO, is that it's gone too far, back when Japan was still relatively static, everyone knew everyone. This made it a lot safer. Nowadays, like the states, you have people that are completely isolated from one another. They live, cooped up in tiny little mansions(not what you think, a Japanese "mansion" is a tiny little condo) in a society that's very careful to protect its privacy. People have urges to have friends, sex and money. If society represses these urges, they tend to come out in other, horrible ways. When society was tighter knit, Japanese people tended to commit suicide. Now, on very rare occasions, they explode in murderous rages.
To me it's a sign that the path that used to result in successful members of Japanese society has become pathological. It will take a huge feat of social engineering or a societal collapse to fix it.
You certainly know the drill. Sometimes kids can be pushed TOO MUCH to excel here in Japan. Also, absent fathers seems to be a big part of it, total dysfunctional, mazaa-con based families.Yup. I remember having a conversation with the son of a friend of mine(who had just gotten kicked out his piano lessons for putting his fist through his teacher's piano, not that I blame him, he never had a second of free time) about why he wanted to go Waseda(one of the top 3 Japanese unis). He said "If I go to a top notch college I will be able to get a girlfriend". I just sort of gave him a funny look at said something to the effect of "good luck with that". Then again, Waseda kids are still omiai(arranged marriage) candidates.I see these Japanese kids, junior high or high school, after "juku" at 11 p.m., noses deep into comic books at the local 7-Eleven or Lawson's conbini. Thick, coke bottle eyeglasses, puny physiques, esconsed in those magazines like there is no outside world. You can try to step around them saying "excuse me" and get no movement out of the way, or maybe just a grunt. If you engaged one eye to eye and said "konnichiwa" or "konbanwa" out of the clear blue sky, they would have absolutely no response to another human being simply saying "hello". These are total robotic kids with NO social skills, getting hyped up on lurid, graphic comics, and then freaking out when they try (and fail) and cannot get real women and fall flat on thier faces. Some carry this densha otoko thing to disastrous ends.
Their dream world overshadows actual reality.
And then some of them go for the survival knife here in Japan; in the US, they go for the automatic weapon as in Virginia Tech.
Freaks. Walking landmines.
We have the same murder laws we did 50 and 100 years ago. Yet intent is given more weight than back then because nearly everyone has gotten softer and liberal. You are just going along with the fad. I’ll know if it is a first degree murder case in court. And if on that jury I will give minimum consideration to intent. Especially if your “mentally ill” killer kills a child or multiple victimsWhoa there killer. Read this before you make any more of a fool of yourself.
“Not to sound a little sick but how do they carry it out there?”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1423612/posts
A View to a Kill (A rare look at a judicial hanging in Japan)
Foreign Policy ^ | May/June 2005
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1758450/posts
Japan: Four hanged on Christmas Day
December 26, 2006 04:14:31
I lean toward firing squads, being something of a traditionalist...
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