"I don't think that the government should use public...

"I don't think that the government should use public opinion as an excuse [to retain the death penalty],'' said Kyoko Otani, a Tokyo-based lawyer who had defended five death-row inmates. "Even in France, the majority of the people were for capital punishment but they abolished it there anyway in 1981. It is wrong to justify taking the life of a person on the basis of a consensus.''
Persuading Japanese people to take that view was, however, made more difficult by the fact that the gap down to the next most severe sentence, life imprisonment, is was so wide. This is because Japan's "lifers" could be considered for parole after serving 10 years, while those sentenced to definite terms could be paroled after serving a third of their term. "True, that is the law," said Otani. "Many people think that those with a life sentence come out after 10 years, but that is not the case. It just means that after 10 years, authorities may consider their parole. But in reality very few are paroled then."
Further complicating the abolitionist cause was the suffering of the victims' families. While some said capital punishment was the only way to atone for a crime, and for family members to have a chance of "closure," others contend that even that did not heal the wounds. "As long as the death penalty exists, the victims are convinced into thinking that their wounds will not heal until the offender is killed," said Otani. "Certainly, support for the victims must be considered if the death penalty is abolished. But we cannot use capital punishment as a consolation for the victims."