Harder to die in Japan
Sep. 18th, 2009 08:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
danalwynIn Japan, in order to be executed apparently, you have to have your execution order signed by the Justice Minister. The new justice minister, Keiko Chiba, has spent twenty years of her life campaigning against the death penalty. Therefore it's unlikely that any execution orders will be signed in the immediate future.
This leaves the US as the only "developed" nation who regularly applies the death penalty to ordinary (read non-treasonous) crimes. Makes you wonder sometimes.
(The chances of this moratorium in Japan sticking may be low. Japan, for reasons I don't understand; apparently has no concept of life imprisonment; which could be a big sticking point in the abolition of the death penalty. But temporary moratoriums happen a lot; especially when the Justice Minister changes.)
This leaves the US as the only "developed" nation who regularly applies the death penalty to ordinary (read non-treasonous) crimes. Makes you wonder sometimes.
(The chances of this moratorium in Japan sticking may be low. Japan, for reasons I don't understand; apparently has no concept of life imprisonment; which could be a big sticking point in the abolition of the death penalty. But temporary moratoriums happen a lot; especially when the Justice Minister changes.)