The article “Japan Clears Man Imprisoned for 17 Years” is about a Japanese man who was wrongfully convicted of a murder. In 1993, Toshikazu Sugaya was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a four-year-old girl. Mr. Sugaya was a kindergarten bus driver when the murder occurred and was the perfect “candidate,” as we know now, for corrupt prosecutors.
The prosecutors working Toshikazu Sugaya’s case forced, in ways that aren’t exactly known, Mr. Sugaya to make false confessions. In addition, the forensic scientists working the case flawed the DNA that was used to convict Mr. Sugaya and ensure a severe sentence. The corruption within the Japanese criminal justice system is something that judges recognize as a problem that needs to be addressed.
The DNA that was used to convict Toshikazu was falsified in order to connect him to the murder of the little girl. DNA falsification is something that most people never think of, but when people are placed in desperate situations you never know what they will do. Fortunately, a fresh DNA analysis was conducted at the request of Toshikazu Sugaya’s lawyers. With the true DNA of Mr. Sugaya available, Mr. Sugaya was released in June of 2009.
5 comments:
"Japan Clears Man Imprisoned for 17 Years"is a stimulating article that really got my attention. What I enjoyed about this presentation was the frightening fact that this man was wrongfully accused of murder and because of this assumption, was given a lifelong sentence. Another thing that interested me was the corruption in the Japanese criminal justice system and how the evidence used in the case was falsified to connect him to the murder. Another disturbing, interesting aspect about this article was that the prosecutors in this case were working in ways that weren't known in order to make false statements about Mr. Sugaya. One thing that I would have liked to know is what the case was about; how the murder happened and the details of it. As well as that, I would have liked to hear about why the forensic scientists were so against him that they were pretending his DNA matched with the murder. All in all, this article was interesting to read, even though it is very strange to think that forensic scientists will falsify DNA to wrongly accuse someone of a crime.
This type of article has become typical but it is good to see that the same system is used overseas. It was interesting to see the lengths some would go to just to make a criminal case go a certain way. i didn't know before what DNA falsification was. And it was well written overall.
What i still don't understand is what was specicifically done to the DNA evidence. And was the really murderer ever found?
Overall, good essay and interesting to read.
What I found interesting about this article was that it discussed a controversy that it’s not often mentioned. I knew that DNA could be replicated but I didn’t know it could be falsified. I also didn’t know how corrupt the Japanese legal system is. Finally I found it interesting that this corruption is such a major problem in Japan and that this isn’t the only case in which this occurred.
What I would like to learn more about is if there is any way that a test could be done to make sure the DNA evidence is real and not falsified. I would also like to know more about this particular case and how much evidence was against the convicted man/if there were any other suspects that could be convicted now since it was revealed that Toshikazu Sugaya was not the real felon.
Something I didn’t know was that DNA scientists have in the past, and continue to abuse their knowledge. Forensics is a controversial science to begin with and more cases like this may take away the validity of the science further which many scientists have proven to be beneficial so it would be a real shame.
The parts of this review that were well written were how she gave the background of the case, how she included that the corruption within the Japanese criminal justice system is a problem that needs to be addressed, and how she included her own thoughts on DNA falsification. This review could have been made better by perhaps including how they flawed the DNA and perhaps y Mr. Sugaya's lawyers requested a fresh DNA analysis 17 years after conviction. One thing I learned from this review is that the Japanese justice system is so corrupt that they falsely imprison a man for 17 years off of falsified evidence and forced false confessions.
I found this article and summary very interesting. What I enjoyed about this presentation was the scary fact that this man was wrongfully accused of murder and because of this assumption, he was given a lifelong jail sentence. Another thing that intrigued me was the large amount of corruption in the Japanese criminal justice system and how exactly the evidence used in the case was used to frame and connect him to the murder. The final aspect of this article and review i found interestnig was that the prosecutors in this case were working secretly to create false statements about Mr. Sugaya.
One thing that I would have liked to know more about is what exactly happened in the case, the details of the original case. I also am interested to know more about why everyone wanted to frame him especially the forensic scientists.
In conclusion I found this article was interesting to read, it helped me learn about a different aspect of cases, and different situations where people are wrongly convicted.
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