That’s not automatically a bad number. Japan has a ridiculously low incarceration rate (63 per 100,000 compared to 748 in the US and 96 in France) so it doesn’t seem as though they randomly pull people from the street and then convict them with near certainty. They might throw out many cases with less than airtight evidence.
Actually, that's not exactly true. The japanese system relies heavily on confession, and without the presence of lawyers. They are sometimes denied food, toilet usage, etc... for days. Several people sentenced to death following confession were acquited in the 80ies...
Also, the way death row works in Japan is particularly horrible: as in the US, people may stay there decades before being killed, but they only know it the day they are killed, and their family is only notified after their death.
I would also note that the incarceration rate is not ridiculously low - if you look at developed countries, the outlier are the US, not Japan. I suspect the French figure to be typical in western Europe, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration
That indeed seems to be horrible. I just wanted to suggest that the number alone is not all that meaningful. (My comment was a bit too assertive for that purpose. I slightly reworded it.) You are certainly right about the US being the outlier with respect to incarceration rates, but even compared to Europe Japan’s numbers are low.
All fair points, and you could make many, many more. So could the other side. In fact, that would make for a great article, because people like you and me care deeply about whether innocent people are being killed arbitrarily. A fair, factual debate about how often that likely occurs would make for a great read.
Wait a second, isn't that what we just read? No, no it's not. If it were, the text I quoted could've been the title because, whether or not you're right, 99% is NINETY-NINE PERCENT and it deserves a goddamn explanation. That much we can agree on.
No, we didn't just read an article about the death penalty. We just read an article about the best way to abolish it. That article takes as a given that the death penalty is immoral and that it should be abolished regardless of the opinions of the nation's citizens. Whether you personally agree or disagree with those presumptions is irrelevant. It's irrelevant because, as you're well aware, plenty of people don't and you don't just write them off as stupid or unimportant. They're citizens just like you are.
To write the article we just read is to believe that their opinions should be ignored. The New York Times is telling you and me, "Anyone who thinks the death penalty is in any way acceptable is a hick or a redneck or a retard-- you know, the same people who DON'T read The New York Times. Not YOU though. YOUR opinion matters. We can tell because YOU read The New York Times. YOU think it's immoral, which is why YOU want to read an article about how to get it the hell out of here, opposition be damned. Isn't that right?"
Even Fox Fucking News doesn't report on, say, the gay marriage debate in this manner. They may be heavily biased to one side, but at least they concede there's a debate to be had.
Other side? I didn’t write that comment because I’m on any particular side. I’m actually all for abolishing the death penalty but that doesn’t really matter. I think this is fine article about a Japanise minister’s campaign to abolish the death penalty, padded with some background info.
