Free at last!

[Bob001]

Japan has released a 78-year-old man who spent 48 years on DEATH ROW on trumped-up charges.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ow-inmate-after-more-than-40-years/?tid=hp_mm

 

[Greedo]

One has to wonder how one can cope with that. Coming back to a world that is completely different from what it used to be before he was arrested. Talk about a wasted life!

 

[Spindrift]

Not quite totally free. The prosecution is appealing and it looks like he will have to face a retrial. Considering the only real evidence was a coerced confession which he later recanted, he probably won't be re-convicted.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Not quite totally free. The prosecution is appealing and it looks like he will have to face a retrial. Considering the only real evidence was a coerced confession which he later recanted, he probably won't be re-convicted.

If you consider being held for 20 days in a tiny room totally alone other than when you are being tortured interrogated, and beaten, as "coerced", then yes. Personally I'd use rather stronger words for it.

 

[commandlinegamer]

Just watched Let Him Have it, the filmed dramatisation of the Derek Bentley case which was on TV again tonight.

Bentley was convicted of murder (by joint enterprise): his accomplice shot dead a policeman.

Time between conviction and execution was seven weeks less one day.

It may have been unfair, and the refusal of parliament to even discuss the case until sentence was carried out, perverse, but I still think it more humane than some other countries implementations.

(In any case, I'm opposed to dp in general.)