Link: Missoulian - UM associate helps steer Japan's judiciary.
TOKYO - With the assistance of a New York lawyer associated with the University of Montana, Japan's criminal court cases will soon work their way through a trial system resembling - at least in part - that of the United States. The most important change in the works: Jurors will be randomly recruited among the Japanese citizenry to serve for one trial, said Robert Precht, co-director of the Juries and Democracy Program at UM's Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center. Yet court decisions will still be rendered in a very different way in Japan, he said. Presently, Japanese criminal cases are presided over by a panel of three judges, who decide guilt or innocence, as well as sentencing.
Starting in May 2009, the country will implement what it calls “saiban-in,” a panel of three judges and six lay citizen jurors, who will hear evidence and then vote on guilt or innocence. They will decide together on sentencing. Precht considers the shift in rendering criminal justice here nothing short of revolutionary for Japanese citizens. All of a sudden, they will start receiving summons to come to court, serve on saiban-in panels and make decisions that can literally determine the life or death of fellow citizens.
“They will have to impose sentences, and that could be the death penalty,” Precht said Thursday at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. “It's as if, in 2009, citizens in the U.S. would be randomly selected to go to Congress and have to participate in Congress.”
And the judges and jury will sit at a bench together, instead of the jury apart in a box like in the U.S. court system.
“Can you imagine what judges would do in the U.S. if they were told that starting in 2009, they would have to scoot over and have ordinary citizens sit with them at the bench?” Precht asked.
Lawyers' work will also undergo a radical change. Presently, prosecutors and defense lawyers mostly submit evidence through written documents to the judges. Cases are therefore decided on the basis of often-lengthy written records and trials can last for years. Allegations of forced confessions abound.
In the new system, evidence will be presented as it is in U.S. trials, based on live testimony of witnesses who can be cross-examined. Japanese lawyers will need to learn a whole new set of skills, including how to present facts to laypeople persuasively.
And that's where Precht comes in, visiting here on two-week tours every month, talking to lawyers, judges and citizens' groups about the U.S. criminal court system. Last December, he was accompanied by James Taylor, his co-director for the Juries and Democracy Program, and Mansfield Center director Terry Weidner.
Born in Washington, D.C., Precht was raised in Scarsdale, outside New York City. He practiced law in New York from 1981 to 1995, then served as an assistant dean of the law school at the University of Michigan until 2004.
Precht also published the book “Defending Mohammed: Justice on Trial,” an account of his experience as an attorney for the defendant in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial.
His interest in Japan's new trial system began after a visiting Japanese law professor at the University of Michigan asked him for help in organizing a tour for Japanese defense lawyers. Because of the planned change in Japan, the lawyers wanted to talk to New York City criminal law experts.
Intrigued, Precht went to the Mansfield Center and persuaded director Weidner to start a program to assist Japan in its shift to the more U.S.-style trial system.
“The University of Montana has a lot of expertise in training trial lawyers,” he said.
A more prosaic consideration also motivated Precht's choice of institution, as his parents live in Missoula. His father, also named Robert, once owned and operated KECI-TV.
Precht works on the program on a voluntary basis, with the Mansfield Center only reimbursing his expenses. He hopes as the deadline for Japan's new system approaches, the country's courts will pay the center to train its lawyers and judges, and invite them to the U.S. to see criminal trials.
The Mansfield Center could also bring former U.S. jurors here to talk to citizens about their experience. “They could show to Japanese citizens that serving on juries is feasible and a valuable experience,” Precht said.
Richard Smith is a reporter with the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan
Comments