INTERNATIONAL: Longest Serving Death Row Prisoner in the World Has Case Reversed

On March 13, 2023 in Japan, Tokyo’s High Court grant­ed a retri­al for Iwao Hakamada, a for­mer box­er known as the ​“longest serv­ing death row” pris­on­er in the world. He was con­vict­ed of mur­der in 1968. Hideaki Nakagawa, Director of Amnesty International Japan, described the rul­ing as a ​“long-over­due chance to deliv­er some jus­tice to Hakamada.”

Although Hakamada had ini­tial­ly denied the charges brought against him, he claimed he lat­er con­fessed to the police after being sub­ject­ed to bru­tal inter­ro­ga­tions and beat­ings. After the death sen­tence was imposed, he attempt­ed to retract his confession.

A dis­trict court grant­ed him a retri­al in 2014, but that rul­ing was over­turned by Tokyo’s High Court in 2016. The country’s Supreme Court then ruled that the Tokyo High Court must recon­sid­er its deci­sion. Hakamada’s sis­ter, Hideko, said: ​“I was wait­ing for this day for 57 years and it has come.” Iwao Hakamada is now 87 years old.

The aver­age time on death row from sen­tenc­ing to exe­cu­tion in the U.S. has grown con­sid­er­ably from about 6 years in 1985 to over 20 years in 2019.