This article was originally published on October 9, 2010.
The article by lawyer Yoshihiro Satō published in the Asahi Shimbun’s “Kōron” at the time stood in direct opposition to the stance of the Asahi Shimbun’s editorial writers and Takashi Tachibana.
Those who set aside the self-evident principle that innocent people must not be punished…and continue to side with prosecutors in their commentary.
What I rejected in this article was the very stance of the mass media, epitomized by the Asahi Shimbun’s editorial writers, and the stance of Takashi Tachibana.
Public reputation, circulation figures, and titles do not guarantee truth.
To convey anew the criticism I directed at citizens who lose sight of this and believe their words, I am republishing the original text unchanged.

2010-10-9
To begin with, have the Asahi editorial writers and Takashi Tachibana completed legal apprenticeship training and obtained qualifications to serve as lawyers, judges, or prosecutors before speaking out on matters like this!
…That, too, strikes me as utterly outrageous.
I believe that any truly intelligent citizen, with no ulterior motives or ill intent, would think the same things as Yoshihiro Satō does below…you should be able to see clearly that they are speaking because they want things to go a certain way, or because they want to butter someone up…if you read this eminently reasonable and intelligent piece.…Apart from the large lettering in the headline, the bold emphasis within the text is mine…
A System That Poses Problems for Preventing Wrongful Convictions
Yoshihiro Satō, lawyer, born in 1944.
Registered as a lawyer in 1978.
Has secured acquittals in six cases as defense counsel, including cases involving false accusations of groping.
His coauthored works include “Defending Those Falsely Accused of Groping.”
The present case involving Ichirō Ozawa, former leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, is one in which prosecutors decided not to indict because of insufficient suspicion.
In other words, prosecutors determined that there was insufficient evidence to obtain a guilty verdict.
I believe that the current system, under which such a case can result in compulsory indictment through the approval of a majority of commission members selected at random from ordinary citizens, is problematic from the standpoint of preventing wrongful convictions.
According to newspaper reports and other sources, opinions within the prosecution service itself were sharply divided over the evaluation of the evidence in this case.
I do not believe that the Prosecution Review Commission is a system intended to ask citizens to make legal judgments in delicate cases like this, where opinions differ over whether the evidence is sufficient.
Rather, is this not a system under which ordinary citizens, free of entanglements, decide to indict when prosecutors have failed to do so for improper reasons—for example, a special relationship with the suspect or deference to someone in power—even though the evidence is sufficient and prosecutors should bring charges?
The Prosecution Review Commission Act states that its purpose is “to ensure the proper exercise of the power of public prosecution by reflecting the will of the people” (Article 1).
Judging from the wording of the statute, what is required of commission members is commonsense judgment, rather than legal knowledge that would enable them to assess the value of evidence.
The resolution in this case describes the Prosecution Review Commission as “a system that, when prosecutors hesitate to indict, seeks to determine guilt or innocence in a fair criminal court under the responsibility of the people.”
This view overlooks the burden imposed by indicting someone who may be innocent.
What I have felt through defending many people in cases of false accusation is that the very act of indicting an innocent person and making that person a criminal defendant imposes an enormous psychological and financial burden on both the individual and the family.
An ordinary company employee who is indicted will, in most cases, be dismissed and lose the means to make a living.
The family also suffers from being regarded as the family of a criminal.
Even if an acquittal is subsequently handed down, the reality is that, while public employees can be reinstated, reinstatement is difficult for ordinary company employees.
Behind society’s prejudice against criminal defendants lies the entrenched view that “indictment equals guilt,” because 99.9 percent of those indicted by prosecutors have been found guilty.
I want those who become commission members to understand fully that the foremost purpose of criminal trials is to avoid punishing innocent people and to prevent wrongful convictions.
To that end, I want the commissions to establish a practice of always explaining to their members principles such as “the benefit of the doubt goes to the defendant” and “the presumption of innocence,” which humanity has developed over the long history of criminal trials.
I believe that citizens’ participation in criminal proceedings to scrutinize prosecutors’ decisions is itself right.
I believe that such scrutiny should take the form of establishing a committee that includes ordinary citizens and has the power to compel cooperation in investigating and verifying the facts, and that recommends measures to prevent recurrence—examining questions such as why a court reached an erroneous verdict or why prosecutors brought charges when a miscarriage of justice occurs, as in the Ashikaga case or the case of Atsuko Muraki.
This is because courts and public prosecutors’ offices tend to be lenient toward their own members.
I believe that anyone with genuine intelligence would naturally think these things.
I believe that only those who, like the Asahi editorial writers and Takashi Tachibana, invariably side with the establishment of the day—that is, those in power—or with the prosecutors, deliberately brush aside such obvious considerations.
The Japanese people should know that unless they recognize this as a standard tactic of totalitarians = fascists = anti-democrats who deceive the public, they too will become criminals…and what, then, was the postwar era for!
The Japanese people really ought to realize by now that truth not only has nothing whatsoever to do with public reputation, circulation figures, or prestigious titles, but is, in fact, to be found furthest away from such people…
But perhaps it is already impossible, with minds that have been brainwashed by newspapers and television like these for more than thirty years.
In preparation for that eventuality, has God, before I knew it, made me a deputy of Enma, the King of Hell, charged with determining the grades of punishment by boiling in Hell’s cauldrons?
If so, I assign the Asahi editorial writers, those within the administration and those outside it who are connected to them, and Takashi Tachibana to first-degree boiling in the cauldron, accompanied by torment on a scale among the greatest in human history…
Surely the grounds for the verdict need no explanation…because they are beneath even dogs and beasts.