Members of innocence organizations and lawyers who represent wrongfully convicted persons in the US and East Asia gathered online on December 9, 2021 to share their challenges and achievements over the past year. It was the second year in a row that the U.S.-Asia Law Institute hosted an online wrongful convictions roundtable.
Event recap: Trends in the Innocence Movement in Asia and the U.S.
On December 8 2020, US-Asia Law Institute held an online webinar featuring the recent developments in the “innocence” work in both East Asia and the United States. This event invited experts from China, Japan, Taiwan and the U.S. to share with the audience the significant trends in exonerating the innocent, with special focuses on the exclusion of junk science and the positive and negative roles played by prosecutors.
Preventing Miscarriages of Justice in Asia
On April 1, 2020. Senior Research Fellow Ira Belkin and USALI staff Allen Clayton-Greene, Amy Gao, Yin Chi, and Eli Blood-Patterson introduce the U.S.-Asia Law Institute's (USALI) program: "Preventing and Redressing Wrongful Convictions." Through this program, international experts, including individuals who themselves had been wrongfully convicted and later exonerated, shared their experience and state-of-the-art expertise with the Asian criminal justice community concerning the root causes of wrongful convictions and measures that can be adopted to prevent them and redress them. Belkin discusses the project background, activities, and lessons learned, while USALI staff members share the long-term impact the program has had in Taiwan, China, and Japan respectively.
Over the course of the four year program, approximately 70 criminal justice experts from Asia participated in intensive month-long workshops at NYU and over 500 Chinese and Japanese experts attended lectures given by USALI-sponsored international experts in China and Japan, respectively. The use of social media expanded the audience in Asia to hundreds of thousands. The project has led to the expansion of Innocence work in Asia as well as more Asian experts joining the international community of lawyers doing Innocence work. Project participants published several books and numerous articles in multiple languages on topics relevant to Innocence work, from how common interrogation techniques can lead to false confessions to why prisons should have law libraries.
Event Videos
Part I: Senior Research Fellow Ira Belkin discusses the project background.
Part II: Senior Research Fellow discusses the project overview, including activities in New York and overseas.
Part III: Research Scholar Yin Chi discusses the project impact in China, especially its impact for Innocence Movement Groups.
Part IV: Research Scholar Allen Clayton-Greene introduces the Taiwan Innocence Project, including the successful exonerations and capacity building in Asia.
Part V: Research Scholar Amy Gao introduces Innocence Project Japan (IPJ) and USALI’s impact in Japan.
Project VI: Research Scholar and Program Manager Eli-Blood Patterson discusses the impact that the project had in the United States.
Part VII: Senior Research Fellow Ira Belkin discusses lessons learned from the project.
40 Years Later: Members Supporting Retrial for the Osaki Case Demand Judicial Reform
Originally published: Nishi Nippon Shimbun
Publication date: October 16, 2019
Author: Daisuke Kono
Original article location
Abstract: In 1979 the body of a brutally murdered man was discovered in Osaki City, Kagoshima Prefecture. Ayako Haraguchi was charged with the crime but has always maintained her innocence. Recently, Haraguchi’s lawyer called together a meeting of researchers and wrongfully convicted individuals to demand judicial reform.
In Haraguchi’s third request for retrial, a district court and high court initially reviewed the case. In June of this year (2019) the court made the unusual decision to reject the request without returning it to the high court. The defense team has decided to make a fourth claim and is preparing to submit new evidence. “If possible, I would like to be charged within the year or at the latest within the year” says the lawyer.
Meanwhile, at the gathering which included about 110 people, Professor Kana Sasakura from Konan University reported on the situation in the United States in which the false accusations were revealed through DNA testing. “Societies believeing that there is no such thing as wrongful convictions has changed a lot,” she said.
In 2016, Keiko Aoki who was imprisoned for over twenty years for burning six small girls in Osaka in 1995, had his case reopened and was declared innocent. “What happened to me was unfortunate, but I won after my first retrial. It only took twenty years. Compared to Ayako, I had it easier.” The Osaki incident overturned the decision to start three retrials, and criticism has been raised in the prosecutor's appeal, which has been a factor for the lengthy process.
Related coverage and information from Japan Innocence and Death Penalty Information Center.