JAPAN: VICIOUSNESS OF GANGS FACTOR IN DEATH SENTENCE

the ultimate penalty imposed by the Nagasaki District Court in Japan on the defendant in the murder of a mayor seemed to show that judges had no other choice, given the vicious nature of his crime and his unreasonable motive behind it. The court handed down a death sentence to Tetsuya Shiroo, a former senior gangster who shot Nagasaki Mayor Itcho Ito to death in April last year. During the trial, prosecutors insisted that the crime was "an act of terrorism targeting an election." Monday's ruling pointed out that it was a crime "absolutely unpardonable in a democratic society." A nine-item guideline for applying the death sentence was presented by the Supreme Court in 1983. One of the criteria is the number of victims. Referring to this point, the ruling said that "it cannot be helped but to impose capital punishment even when it is considered that there was only one victim," also taking into consideration his motives and the gravity of the outcome. Among the reasons cited for handing down the death sentence, the court said that "the wishes of the public to ensure there is no repeat of the incident was a major factor" in this respect.