On the twenty second of January 1999, the Japanese criminal authorities revealed their revulsion of decency and human rights at the Osaka High Court. District prosecutors presented arguments against one Etsuko Yamada ( a former day care worker, aged 47) for murder, a crime which she has been tried and found innocent twice over the last twenty five years.

A summary of the case:

• Between March 17 and 19, 1974, one boy and one girl, both aged twelve, were found missing from their residence at the Kabutoyama Gakuen, a school for the mentally disabled in Nishinomiya, Hyogo prefecture. A massive search of the area by police and community lead to the discovery of the bodies in the school's septic tank. The cause of death was listed as drowning.
• The police immediately suspected murder and began to interview and interrogate each and every member of the institution's staff, thirty three in all. Few imagined that their children could perpetrate such a tragedy. Yet, the police vacuum of the septic tank uncovered many toys and pieces of clothing. The heavy seventeen kilogram (thirty-five pound) lid covering the tank had to have been moved several times to hold the quantity of items removed in the search. External and internal pressure upon the authorities to arrest a suspect became intense. On April, 7, twenty eight days after the incident, prefectural police arrested twenty two year old Etsuko Yamada (nee Sawasaki), a teacher of the school on charges of murder.
• What evidence or testimony supported the arrest? Yamada was one of three on duty the night that the second child is assumed to have disappeared. Her family background was slightly odd. She was raised by her father after a divorce. Born in the mountain prefecture of Toyama, she grew up in the city of Matsuyama on the island of Shikoku. Though no small city-the population at the time was about 400,000- residents of Tokyo or Osaka would consider it a provincial town. Not the model of obedience and obsequiousness one would expect of a young Japanese woman, she was outspoken and direct in speech and communication. Yet, she had a sensitive personality and wept wildly at the children's funerals.
• Such was the scope of evidence at the time. The absence of credible materials implicating Yamada was not seen as a problem, she could be held in custody in a substitute prison (daiyou kangoku) for twenty three days without being formally charged. During this period, interrogation could be administered from morning until midnight with very limited access to counsel; good tactics for extracting a confession. With a confession in hand, the public would be satisfied, the pressure would be off the police.
• This plan proceeded as expected. After vehemently protesting her innocence, Yamada broke under interrogation and signed a confession. Strongly insisting she had no recollection of harming the children, the confession stated: "I believe I committed the crimes while unconscious." Several days later, after repeated reminders that unrepentant murderers go to the gallows, the detectives succeeded in extracting a full blown confession to the charge of murder.
• Whether their endeavors lead to prosecution and conviction was only of casual importance to the police. The hideous nature of this incident-retarded children being drowned in a fetid doom-, galvanized the public's attention. The real trial would be conducted in the media. Always thirsty for a new scoop, the newspapers and television networks were all too eager to fan the flames. Yamada's arrest and subsequent confessions made prime time television and front page news. The Japanese media saw no reason to doubt their police, quite to the contrary, they themselves dissected the suspect with all manner of expert opinions attempting to distill what drove this young woman to insanity and murder.
• With confessions in hand the next step, according to common judicial procedure, would be a formal indictment with the prosecution. A trial would begin and the prosecution would make a case before three judges (Japan has no jury system). But without verifiable evidence or credible testimony what could be done? With the public desire for a scapegoat satiated, and Yamada's name already permanently destroyed, the police released their suspect with the casual rejoinder, "pending further investigation."
• This story may well have ended here. The police expected their confessor to disappear from public view, perhaps to some obscure mountain village. The public would gradually forget the case, investigators who saw it to completion would be congratulated and rewarded. The criminal authorities would bask in the sun, their prestige reaffirmed in the the public's eye.
• Many well thought plans veer from their scripted courses; this one shockingly so. Rather than fleeing to some distant province, Yamada, aided by a barrage of willful, pro bono lawyers, filed charges against the prefectural police and the state demanding apologies and punitive damages under the State Redress Law. As the chances of winning any kind of judgment from such a suit in Japan are almost nil, it was primarily a symbolic action. In a short instance, the self aggrandizement in which the police were basking suddenly darkened.
• The value of face in authoritarian societies is inestimable, Yamada and her attorneys were preparing to drag it through the mud. Whether punitive damages would be won or not was beside the question, the police would be given a lesson on decency and the necessity of abiding by fair and due process, the media could be shown the sham upon which they so willingly feasted.
• As the suit against the state gradually proceeded, the powers that be went on the attack. A reinvestigation was opened, previous wards of the now defunct school, all mentally impaired to some degree, were questioned closely and carefully by the police. In order to show their intolerance of effrontery , the police ransacked the office of her support association, searched the homes of its members and seized over one thousand pieces of "evidence". Yamada was rearrested in March of 1978 along with two colleagues who supported her alibi. The brunt of the evidence: testimony of the mentally disabled young adults of the institution, commencing three years and several months after the incident occurred.
• This was the essence of the prosecution's case in what may be this century's longest running criminal trial. The first trial ran from 1978 until 1985 concluding with a decision of "not guilty." The prosecution appealed, despite the presence of article 39 of the Japanese constitution proclaiming "those accused shall not be put in double jeopardy of life and limb." As in any autocratic society, what the prosecution requests, it usually gets. The Osaka High Court refused to try the case but remanded it to the district court for a retrial. Without directly saying so, the high court tacitly concurred that Yamada was guilty. The second trial began in Feb 1993. Five years and one month later, on March 26,1998, the Kobe District Court again declared the defendant "innocent."
• In a society where face outweighs fairness, common sense and human rights mean little. On April 13 ,1998, the Kobe prosecutor's office filed an appeal with the Osaka High Court for a retrial. The court accepted the appeal,
• On January 22, 1999, the Japanese criminal authorities revealed their revulsion of decency and human rights at the Osaka High Court. District prosecutors presented arguments against one Etsuko Yamada ( a former day care worker, aged 47) for murder, a crime which she has been tried and found innocent twice over the last twenty four years The second appeal trial before the Osaka High Court closes hearings with five sessions taking only two months.
• The decisions are scheduled to be given on September 29, 1999 for Yamada, on October 22 for Araki and October 29 for Tada. The Osaka High Court is definitely expected to give the third acquittal decisions for all three of them.

( 1999.8.15 )