Posted on 06/17/2008 1:29:10 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Japan hangs 3 convicted murderers
By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press writer
9 minutes ago
A serial killer who mutilated the bodies of four young girls and reportedly drank the blood of one of his victims was among three convicted murderers executed in Japan on Tuesday for crimes an official called indescribably cruel.
Tsutomu Miyazaki, 45, whose rash of grisly killings in the late 1980s triggered calls for tighter restrictions on violent pornographic videos, was hanged at a detention center in Tokyo, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said.
Miyazaki burned the body of one 4-year-old and left her bones on her parents' doorstep. He also wrote letters to the media and victims' families taunting police. Japanese newspaper reports said he ate part of the hand of one of his victims and drank her blood.
The two others executed Tuesday were Shinji Mutsuda, 45, who had been on death row for the murder and robbery of two people, and Yoshio Yamasaki, 73, who was convicted of killing two people for the insurance money, the Justice Ministry said in a statement.
"I ordered their executions because the cases were of indescribable cruelty," Hatoyama said. "We are pursuing executions in order to achieve justice and firmly protect the rule of law."
Japan, one of the few industrialized countries that has capital punishment, has picked up the pace of executions over the past year amid rising concerns about violent crime.
The three executions brought to 13 the number of death row inmates hanged in the past six months under Hatoyama, an outspoken supporter of the death penalty. Only one inmate was executed in 2005.
Amnesty International Japan protested Tuesday's hangings and said the pace of executions in Japan is quickening. In a statement, the group also demanded Japan abolish capital punishment.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said there is no need for a change.
"There is no other policy than to maintain the current policy," Fukuda said Tuesday. "There are people who want to abolish it, but that is a minority view. The majority want it to be maintained. I feel there is no need to change it, but we must also keep an eye on world opinion."
Hatoyama, who took office last August, denied his ministry was purposely picking up the pace of hangings. Three men were executed in December, three more in February and another four in April.
In 1997, Tokyo District Court found Miyazaki guilty of killing four girls aged 4 to 7 years old in 1988 and 1989, and sentenced him to death. The Tokyo High Court upheld the sentence in 2001, and the Supreme Court followed suit on Jan. 17 this year, exhausting Miyazaki's appeals.
Miyazaki was also convicted of the abduction and sexual assault of a fifth girl.
The murders and Miyazaki's arrest dominated Japanese headlines, along with the discovery that his home was filled with a collection of thousands of violent pornographic videos, animated films and comic books stacked floor-to-ceiling.
The case triggered concerns that many young people had become desensitized to human suffering through the repeated viewing of graphic images in videos and comics.
Mutsuda also was hanged at the Tokyo detention center for killing two men and robbing them of $278,000 in 1995 and 1996. Yamasaki was executed in Osaka for murders committed in 1985 and 1990.
Japan has 102 death row inmates after Tuesday's hangings, the ministry said.
The government began to release the names of those executed and their crimes in December, easing its secret policy in an apparent move to gain understanding and support for capital punishment.
Despite international criticism of Japan's death penalty, there is little opposition to the policy domestically.
Ping!
The lack of a death penalty is a leading sign of a society that doesn’t have what it takes to ensure its long term survival. It’s rather emblematic of giving up in the face of evil.
Kudos to Japan for not caving to the likes of the Shamnesty International crowd.
I’m generally against the death penalty except in cases where the accused is convicted on the basis of a guilty plea; it’s too easy to kill the wrong guy. However, in cases such as that of Miyazaki, I make an exception. The guy was simply one of the lowest pieces of filth ever to exist on this planet. Every breath he was allowed to draw prior to his richly deserved execution was one too many.
Japan does not cotton to any of that modern, painless, lethal injection stuff. In Japan, they simply hang your ass — quietly, behind prison walls, with no press coverage and no media fuss.
I hate to say this about another human being, but in the case of Miyazaki I say good riddance to bad garbage. May his existence be erased from human memory; may his name never be spoken again.
Sayonara!
What is it that some people don't understand about the term "justice?" Sometimes the only way true justice can be achieved is through the death penalty. It's not that complicated of a concept.
Let a family member of a death penalty protester be the victim of a heinous murder, and they'd change their tune real fast. Without having to experience it themselves, they have no empathy for the dead, and especially no empathy for the families that have to deal with knowing that a loved one was brutally, senselessly murdered, while also knowing that the murderer gets to keep on living, which adds to the frustration and pain. Screw that.
It sounds to me like the Japanese are intent on carrying out the death penalty when it's required, and aren't afraid to stand by it as a sane policy. Good for them.
If you take a precious life for senseless or greedy reasons, then you should pay with your own life. Why is that such a problem for some people that have nothing better to do than whine about murderers getting the justice due them? Cry me a river.
If it was up to me, the death penalty would have many different degrees of swiftness. In cases where there is no doubt about the guilt of the perp (like with the Long Island railroad mass murders), the perp should be put to death immediately, like the next day. In cases where a conviction of guilt was established, but not necessarily an airtight conviction, then let them exhaust their appeals.
definitely NOT "mata, aimashou"
I'm encouraged that Japan took this scum off the face of the earth. And I congratulate the fact that that the Japanese people won't have to feed, clothe and house these three perverts at the waste of precious resources.
I believe that the death penalty will come back generally in Europe, although I believe that the societies themselves have been so "gutterized" that there will be many people put to death for the wrong reasons.
Nevertheless, well done, Japan.
As in for blasphemy - for failing to give the Koran the respect that Europe's future rulers will demand?
“As in for blasphemy - for failing to give the Koran the respect that Europe’s future rulers will demand?”
I’m glad that the moderators allow mind reading on THIS thread. You did a good job with my mind. Bullseye!
Japan has an old and advanced culture.
Unlike the declining Western Civilizations,Nippon has the moral clarity to punish ultimate evil with ultimate punishment.
Only coward governments with no true concern for their people avoid holding their worse criminals fully responsible.
It is a very simple concept if you limit your thinking to what's going on in the physical level of existence; if you ratchet it up a notch or two to a more spiritual or philosophical level it becomes less simple. Having a society engage in sanctioned murder no matter how "justified" doesn't advance it.
You've drawn a rather fuzzy line. If you're against the death penalty, then be against it. Don't make exceptions. Exceptions allow bias and prejudice to rule the day.
The lack of a death penalty is a leading sign of a society that doesn’t have what it takes to ensure its long term survival
Electric bleachers sounds good to me save money an eye for an eye works.
“Advanced culture”- Hmmm, are you aware of the porn and anime that comes out of that “advanced culture”? It makes American stuff look Victorian.
“It is a very simple concept if you limit your thinking to what’s going on in the physical level of existence; if you ratchet it up a notch or two to a more spiritual or philosophical level it becomes less simple. Having a society engage in sanctioned murder no matter how “justified” doesn’t advance it.”
I suppose your defintion “in the physical level of existence” doesn’t mean that when someone is murdered that they are really dead? They still have a “spiritual or philosophical” existence? Some bad people need killing and your word games doesn’t excuse that. The world needs to execute more of these killers, not less.
pics?
I would not have thought Japan had a DP. I thought they were one of those societies considered by the elites to be so much more civilized than the US because they have so little gun crime.
They hang the condemned? How long before the UN and every lefty group starts screaming they should stop this because it is racist and offensive to a certain segment of the US population?!
Your opinion not mine pal
“Your opinion not mine pal”
Someone needs to take out the garbage, pal.
Difficult one, this. There’s no room for any doubt: this is a monster.
But since I am principally against the death penalty, my stance on things is that only lifelong isolated detention is in order.
See: it is a scientific fact that people like him have a underdeveloped, different brain structure, and thus lack any power of moral judgment. You can’t even speak of ‘ill will’ on his part, there IS simply no real ‘will’ in any conventional meaning; free will is absent, and thus only impulse is a driving force.
Yet, since I believe the universe is moral in character, and even this person was created by divinity, humans don’t have the right to kill him. It’s one of the Commandments.
Hence my position. Disagreement is truly welcome.
“Tsutomu Miyazaki, 45, whose rash of grisly killings in the late 1980s triggered calls for tighter restrictions on violent pornographic videos, was hanged at a detention center in Tokyo, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said.”
They waited 20 years on this maggot?
“Despite international criticism of Japan’s death penalty, there is little opposition to the policy domestically.”
Notice how they don’t cave to tards from other countries?
“They hang the condemned? How long before the UN and every lefty group starts screaming they should stop this because it is racist and offensive to a certain segment of the US population?!”
Hanging will never fly here, because the left will insist that you can’t prove that the death is painless.
Amen! Glad to see Japan actually providing justice to the victims and society.
They have so little gun crime because they have so little "diversity". I was reading one of the European conservative blogs last week, and a guy from England was impressed that people in Tokyo could leave their bikes unattended and unlocked outside stores while they were shopping or dining. And the bike would still be there when they returned! He said there's no way on earth you could do that in Clockwork Londonistan. Or even ride the bike through the sections of the city that are no-go zones without risking being knifed.
They hang the condemned? How long before the UN and every lefty group starts screaming they should stop this because it is racist and offensive to a certain segment of the US population?!
Yep! I saw a video recently promoting the Chinese Olympics. It's all about Chinese culture and history. A similar video here would be all about how "we are the world". Anyway, it shows some Chinese food being prepared and served (Peking duck, etc.) and one of the food items (a noodle of some kind, I guess) is being twisted into a noose shape. The food "noose" looks just like a real noose. It's just the traditional method of making that particular food, but over here people would be freaking out over it and wouldn't allow that very brief clip to be shown for fear of "offending" people, even though it's totally innocent.
Hasn't he heard of Hopebama?.............
What an oxymoron!...........
To Amnesty International, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said, “What’s my Name!”
Sorry, but there needs to be a substantiating reference supplied for this "fact". The sweeping nature of the statement means it is likely supposition - broad statements may be statistically true, but less so on a case-by-case basis.
I believe that the death penalty, fairly and judiciously applied in a timely fashion (especially given the state of forensic technology, and the sureness it can engender) is a strong deterrent. The biggest issue we have in the U.S. is the lack of timeliness - 25+ years on "death row" is hardly deterrent in nature.
With respect to the commandments, the King James translation (and all of the follow-ons I am aware of) contain a substantial mistranslation. "Thou shalt not kill" should have read "Thou shalt not murder". The death penaly is not murder - it is punishment. Obviously, it should be very judiciously applied, with the utmost care to avoid error. When doubt's shadow is dark, imprison for life (without parole). When doubt's shadow is a gossamer film, then the convicted has forfeited his or her life.
Purely my opinion, of course.
Please drop the elitism and tell us what you mean exactly. Are you saying that the existence of a spirit means we shouldn't punish people appropriately for crimes on earth? It says to me the opposite... kick their lousy asses out of this realm, and let them sit amoungs the clouds and sing kumbaya.
How would you like to dress it up? Capital Punishment? The Ultimate Penalty? Bottom line: a dead body.
I think japan has a population of some 130 million and yet they have about 100,000ish people in prison compared to our 2,000,000.
If death is sanctioned it’s not murder. If it’s murder, it’s not sanctioned..............
Got it the first time
I’m not against capital punishment per se. I am against killing the wrong person. This is why I support the death penalty only in cases where the convicted man admits his guilt.
Opponents of the death penalty aid and abet violent criminals.
Thanks for your reply, although I disagree. My only omission, as far as I can see, would have to be that a hi-res brain scan would be a measuring device to determine what’s wrong exactly.
That said: psychopaths of this type almost always show severe malformations or other aberrations in the ‘prefrontal cortex’, a brain region that is extremely important in making proper moral judgments and admitting doubt before acting. A famous case is that of a steel-worker in the 1930s who got a big metal piece (sort of a shaft) in his forehead, and thereafter turned into an unpredictable violent animal of a man. This set scientist on the track of identifying the different tasks of various brain regions (e.g., your ‘hippocampus’ is essential for shortterm and spatial memory, as well as starting to construct longterm memories, and also for regulating your moods).
This can be illustrated with hundreds of links to scientific articles, for instance on the Pubmed site, the premier site worldwide for medical science publications. When time allows I will seek out a couple, if you’re interested. Let me know.
So, I’ll stick to my original opinion. The absence of the power for ethical judgment and free will, and impulse being the only drive for a killer, should never lead to capital punishment.
Sincere thanks for your reference to that Bible translation issue. But I feel it is my turn now to put a question to you: how is it possible that the King James translation and all follow-ups (also in Dutch, German, French - that is what I know for sure, and these are certainly not taken from the King James version) contain the same grave mistake? What does the original Hebrew text (or Coptic Greek, or whatever) exactly read in this respect? Surely some translator or another (of which there must be tens of thousands) would have noted such an enormous, life-or-death error?
Respectfully submitted, A13.
“If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call.”
John McAdams - Marquette University/Department of Political Science, on deterrence
You might call it "sanctioned murder," while others will call it justice. Equating capital punishment with the term "sanctioned murder" is not a valid comparison. A murderer kills for silly reasons other than self defense, while the state kills the murderer because he murdered. Killing a murderer to achieve justice is hardly the same as a murderer murdering for his own twisted reasons.
My view on "the spiritual" aspect of it is that God has placed us all here for a reason and we'll go when he says it's our time to go. A murderer interupts that plan for daring to play God with the life of another human being.
How do you think that having a society engage in capital punishment when appropriate doesn't advance it? We've always had capital punishment in this nation, and it never stopped us from becoming "advanced." Meanwhile, little by little, the coddling of criminals by the state gets worse and worse, and society slips further into the sewer with each passing year.
If you want to bring the spiritual aspect of things into it, that's up to God. If a murderer is truly sorry in his heart for what he did and seeks forgiveness from God and the family members of his victim, then that's fine with me, but that doesn't nullify the need for Caesar's justice to be carried out for the good of society.
"State sanctioned murder" is what Hitler did to millions of innocent people. It has nothing to do with capital punishment. Justice and state sanctioned murder are hardly the same thing.
The average Japanese is aware of the degenerates in his society.He believes they are sick and wrong but chooses not to judge.The deviants are looked down upon or laughed at as they are considered more wierd than criminal—unless their perversions lead to violence—as this article confirms.
Diferent strokes for diferent folks is a phrase that could have been invented by the Japanese.Still,odd behavior in such a structured and ritualistic society is a severe handicap if one wishes to be thought of as honorable and respectable.
You might call it "sanctioned murder," while others will call it justice. Equating capital punishment with the term "sanctioned murder" is not a valid comparison. A murderer kills for silly reasons other than self defense, while the state kills the murderer because he murdered. Killing a murderer to achieve justice is hardly the same as a murderer murdering for his own twisted reasons.
It may not be a valid comparison from where you're coming from but last I looked it reads: "Thou shalt not kill." I don't recall exceptions.
My view on "the spiritual" aspect of it is that God has placed us all here for a reason and we'll go when he says it's our time to go. A murderer interupts that plan for daring to play God with the life of another human being.
If it works as you say: "we'll go when it's our time to go" then I'd say the murderer is playing out God's plan rather than interupting it.
How do you think that having a society engage in capital punishment when appropriate doesn't advance it? We've always had capital punishment in this nation, and it never stopped us from becoming "advanced." Meanwhile, little by little, the coddling of criminals by the state gets worse and worse, and society slips further into the sewer with each passing year.
What's the murder rate in this country compared other industrial nations without capital punishment? What's the incarceration rate here? I believe it's a trickle down kind of thing
If you want to bring the spiritual aspect of things into it, that's up to God. If a murderer is truly sorry in his heart for what he did and seeks forgiveness from God and the family members of his victim, then that's fine with me, but that doesn't nullify the need for Caesar's justice to be carried out for the good of society.
The society that can't forgive is also one that won't be forgiven. The urge for retribution is strong and in turn weighs on those who carry it out. It's like a psyhic weight that gets passed on.
"State sanctioned murder" is what Hitler did to millions of innocent people. It has nothing to do with capital punishment. Justice and state sanctioned murder are hardly the same thing.
As I said in an earlier reply, no matter how you dress it up both result in a dead human body and we're back to "Thou shalt not kill" Hey if someone abused murdered butchered and then ate my child like one of these guys did I have a real hard time with it; but I believe that the only way out of it would be to forgive him.....putting him to death does not bring my child back and the momentary rush of knowing he was dead would fade eventually.
The bible also preaches "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." Not sure how that goes against capital punishment either.
Thinking that a murderer is carrying out the will of God is totally ridiculous thinking to me. If that's the case, then we could arrive at the conclusion that murderers should all be let lose to carry out more of God's will.
The high murder rate is a result of a lack of teaching of morality in every aspect of life, not the result of capital punishment. Aside from that, it's irrelevant to me, as to it being a deterrent.
It is not up to "society" to forgive a murderer as much as it's up to the family and loved ones of the victim he murdered. I hope you never have to find out what it's like. Executing a murderer wouldn't bring your child back, but you will feel that justice was done more than you would feel it if he had your tax money taking care of him the rest of his miserable life.
Why do you feel it's your place to "forgive" a murderer when you aren't the one that has to deal with the brutal loss of a family member you loved with all your heart? It's like if my wife cheated on me, and then you forgiving her for it, even though you're not the one she cheated on. How is that logical? Forgiving others for something they didn't personally do to you is very presumptive and arrogant, imo. It's up to the wronged party to forgive someone, not a stranger that has nothing to do with what happened. The government's job is to speak for the victim that can no longer speak for themselves, and sometimes the government deigns that the death of the murderer is the only way to properly speak for the victim. I see nothing wrong about this, or unbliblical whatsoever. It doesn't mean the murderer can't be forgiven, but forgiveness is not up to the state.
When is the Cult Leader responsible for the sarin gas attack going to swing?
In the old days, they used stacks of prisoners to test the sharpness of katanas. The sharpest grade was a 5-man katana.
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