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Monday, January 29, 2007
Ind. Courts - "With legal reform on its docket, Japan looks to Indiana courts"
"With legal reform on its docket, Japan looks to Indiana courts: Judge visits Indianapolis as part of Asian nation's effort to introduce juries to courts" is the headline to this story by Jon Murray in today's Indianapolis Star. It begins:
A trial by jury. Reasonable doubt.They're new concepts for modern Japan, ones that are sending judges to Indianapolis and other far-flung cities as the island nation tries to inject citizen participation into its criminal justice system.
Judge Goichi Nishino, of Kobe, Japan, was in Indianapolis for the past two weeks, sitting in on court actions, talking to state and federal judges, and observing how the jury and trial system works.
He left Saturday for stops in Evansville and Kentucky, and then will report back on how jurors are selected and their roles in trials.Juries, alongside judges, will start their work in Japan starting in 2009. Japan's National Diet (equivalent to the U.S. Congress) passed the law creating the "saiban-in" system -- meaning "lay judges" -- in 2004. Judicial officials still are figuring out the finer points.
"We're very interested in how to deal with lengthy and complex cases," Nishino said.
Unlike the U.S. system, which often uses a dozen jurors, Japan will try its most serious criminal cases with six lay judges to supplement the three professional judges. Majority votes will decide the conviction and sentence, but at least one professional judge must agree.
Nishino said one difficulty is that trials -- now decided by three-judge panels -- sometimes stretch out over weeks and months with sporadic sessions.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 29, 2007 10:58 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts