Japanese Exoneree Awarded $1.4 Million in Compensation After Spending 46 Years on Death Row

On March 24, 2025, Iwao Hakamada was award­ed just over $217 mil­lion yen ($1.4 mil­lion) in com­pen­sa­tion after spend­ing 46 years wrong­ful­ly incar­cer­at­ed on Japan’s death row. According to Mr. Hakamada’s legal rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Hideyo Ogawa, this award marks the ​“high­est” com­pen­sa­tion ever pro­vid­ed for a wrong­ful con­vic­tion. Mr. Hakamada, who was exon­er­at­ed last year, is only the fifth death-sen­tenced pris­on­er to receive a retri­al in post-World War II Japan, all of which have result­ed in exon­er­a­tions. Aside from the United States, Japan is the only oth­er G7 nation to retain the death penal­ty. Although a 2024 gov­ern­ment sur­vey found that over 80% of Japanese respon­dents saw the death penal­ty as ​“unavoid­able,” the per­cent­age of respon­dents who favor abo­li­tion near­ly dou­bled from the last sur­vey con­duct­ed five years ago. 

Mr. Hakamada was for­mal­ly acquit­ted on September 26, 2024 of the 1966 quadru­ple mur­der of his for­mer boss and fam­i­ly. Judge Kunii Tsuneishi of the Shizuoka District Court ruled the blood-stained cloth­ing used to con­vict Mr. Hakamada was fab­ri­cat­ed long after the mur­ders. Although Mr. Hakamada ini­tial­ly con­fessed to the killings after endur­ing 20 days of trou­bling inter­ro­ga­tions by police — who he alleged beat him — he retract­ed his con­fes­sion dur­ing tri­al and has main­tained his inno­cence since. In 1968, Mr. Hakamada was sen­tenced to death by a 2 – 1 three-judge pan­el.. His death sen­tence was con­firmed in 1980, and his legal team first called for a retri­al in 1981. A retri­al was grant­ed in 2014 based on DNA test­ing of evi­dence that showed no match to either Mr. Hakamada or the vic­tims. That same year, Mr. Hakamada was released from prison due to his age and com­pro­mised mental state. 

Judge Hiroaki Murayama’s 2014 deci­sion to grant Mr. Hakamada a retri­al made him only the fifth death-sen­tenced pris­on­er to receive a retri­al in post-war Japan; all five death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers who have received a retri­al have been exon­er­at­ed. In an inter­view with Agence France Presse, now-retired Judge Murayama explained, ​“retri­al is sup­posed to be the last pos­si­ble mea­sure to save the wrong­ful­ly incar­cer­at­ed, but the sys­tem is not func­tion­ing as it should.” Judge Murayama said he made it his ​“team’s biggest pri­or­i­ty to speed up delib­er­a­tions” in Mr. Hakamada’s case, and he was ​“wor­ried sick” Mr. Hakamada might die before the legal process con­clud­ed. Retrials are so rare in Japan crit­ics have likened it to an ​“unopen­able door.” From 2017 to 2021, just one per­cent of about 1,150 retri­al appli­ca­tions from all con­vict­ed were grant­ed. In the after­math of Mr. Hakamada’s exon­er­a­tion, con­ver­sa­tions sur­round­ing reform have gained momen­tum. On March 28, 2025, Japan’s jus­tice min­is­ter Keisuke Suzuki announced that a pan­el of legal experts will study the cur­rent retrial process. 

Every five years, the Japanese gov­ern­ment con­ducts a sur­vey eval­u­at­ing pub­lic sen­ti­ment sur­round­ing the death penal­ty; the lat­est sur­vey col­lect­ed respons­es from 1,815 peo­ple from October to December 2024. Although over 80% of respon­dents, or 1,508 peo­ple, said the death penal­ty was ​“unavoid­able,” 34.4% said they would sup­port abo­li­tion if ​“cir­cum­stances change.” The sur­vey also found that 16.5% of respon­dents believe the death penal­ty should be abol­ished, which is near­ly dou­ble what it was in 2019 (9%). Of those who favor abo­li­tion, 71% explained that their sup­port was due to the irrev­o­ca­ble nature of the pun­ish­ment, up from 50.7% in 2019. However, it’s impor­tant to note that the gov­ern­ment did not com­pare cur­rent sur­veys to past sur­veys due to a change in data col­lec­tion from in-per­son inter­views to mailed-in respons­es, prompt­ed by the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. And in gen­er­al, the government’s sur­vey design has been repeat­ed­ly crit­i­cized by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, which cau­tions the pub­lic from incor­rect­ly equat­ing those who see the death penal­ty as ​“unavoid­able” as sup­port for retain­ing the death penalty.