The Tokyo High Court rejected a plea for a retrial...

The Tokyo High Court rejected a plea for a retrial by Iwao Hakamada, a former professional boxer who had been on death row for 36 years for the 1966 murder of a family of four in Shizuoka Prefecture, upholding a lower court decision to reject the request. The decision was communicated to the defense counsel of Hakamada, 68, who filed his first plea for a retrial in 23 years, saying he was beaten by police into making a false confession. The defense counsel argued for a retrial, saying clothes and the murder weapon, a knife, presented during the trial were inconsistent with evidence found at the scene of the crime.
Presiding Judge Fumio Yasuhiro said in rejecting the retrial plea, ''The new evidence presented by the defense lawyers was not clear enough or lacked the novelty necessary for opening a retrial and there is no reason to doubt the validity of previous rulings.''
Hakamada was sentenced to death by the Shizuoka District Court in 1968 for the murder of a soybean paste company executive, his wife and two children in what was then Shimizu, Shizuoka, on June 30, 1966. The family's home was set on fire and about 200,000 yen in cash was stolen. Hakamada, then 30, had retired from boxing and was working at the company. He was arrested in August that year for the murder, robbery and arson and at one point confessed. But in court he said he made the confession under duress. The lower court determined that he committed the crime for money and sentenced him to death but, in a rare move, criticized police investigations, saying the police's methods, including coercive questioning, may have violated the Constitution.