budd said:
^ pretty true
if two foreigners are fighting, police just toss them both in the clink -- maybe let the one who looks more worse for wear go free eventually. bad idea to get into trouble on an island -- get away how?
if a foreigner and a native are fighting? well, who has better command of the language (and can reason with the authorities)?
Another point to keep in mind.....
I wonder if King is aware of how long the Japanese (in)justice system can hold people without filing charges?
Initial police hold: 48 hours
Extension: 24 hours
Initial prosecutor's hold 10 days
Extension: 10 days
So you can be held for a total of 23 days before they have to either file charges or release you.
Further points to keep in mind:
1. You are
not entitled to phone anyone and tell them where you are and what has happened to you. If they want, they can hold you 100% incommunicado
2. You do
not have the right to contact an attorney until such time as charges are actually filed. You do
not have the right to have an attorney present during questioning.
3. Pre-trial bail is routinely
denied, and cases proceed at a geological pace. Confinement can continue even through any appeals process. I know of one case where a woman spent 13 years in jail while her case proceeded through the original trial and the two appeals that one can file. When it was all wrapped up, she was sentenced to 8 years. Judges have full discretion whether to credit all, some, or none of the time already confined toward the final sentence. In this woman's case, despite having already been locked up for 13 years for a crime that got her a sentence of 8 years, the judge decided to send her to prison for six months anyway.
4. Illegally obtained evidence is
routinely admitted in Japanese trials.
5. Judges largely view trials as a formality, and already have an idea how much time they're going to give you before opening statements are even made.
6. Defense attorneys
routinely feed damaging information about their clients to the prosecutor. So that whole attorney-client privilege thing is something of a farce.
7. Prosecutors enjoy a conviction rate of (last I read) about 98.8%. If you go to trial, you can count on being convicted. It's pretty much a foregone conclusion.
8. Investigators face little or no restrictions about how they question you. Sleep and food deprivation are par for the course, with detectives being perfectly content to interrogate you in shifts, perhaps up to 18 or 20 hours per day.
9. Police reports sent to the prosecutor, in which you give your statement, are supposed to be written by the detainee, but in actual fact they are written by the police, who know just how to word them to put you in the most damning position posible.
10. Police reports are routinely falsified and forged. The pages are not sequentially numbered, and it is
normal practice for them to write one up which fits with the detainee's take on the matter, have them sign it, and then remove all the interior pages and rewrite them with damning material.
Believe me, King, I have done rather extensive study on the Japanese criminal justice system through reading numerous Japanese language materials on the subject. They not only hold all the aces, they make up the rules as they go along. You absolutely do not want to be the object of their attention. I have no idea how long a visit to Japan you may have planned, but do you really want to waste 23 days of it sitting in the pokey and sleeping on a concrete floor in a cell where the lights are on 24/7, your every move directly observed by cops?