Given the air of secrecy that has always surrounded Japan’s system of capital punishment, it’s still likely that many Japanese people are not aware of the methodology used to carry out an execution, even though it’s been revealed time and again by the media. The Asahi Shimbun reiterated the cold cruelty of the procedure with an exceptionally disturbing piece that appeared March 29, in which an inmate of the Osaka Detention Center described in detail what he saw and heard when guards came to collect a death row prisoner for his hanging. For those who are unaware, inmates awaiting capital punishment are not made aware of the date and time of their execution until the exact moment when detention center personnel open their cell doors to take them to the gallows. The kind of terror these prisoners live with on a day-to-day basis is difficult to imagine, and the testimony of this 36-year-old inmate, Takahiro Imanishi, whose cell was across the corridor from that of a condemned man, puts it into perspective without making it any less horrifying.

The narrative, as written down in Imanishi’s diary, gets very specific. At 7:30 am on Dec. 21, 2021, the wake-up chime sounded in the detention center. Imanishi dutifully got up, folded his futon, tidied his cell, washed his face, and waited for breakfast to be delivered. However, he noticed that the corridor outside his cell was “quieter than it usually was” at this hour of the morning. The silence was suddenly and violently shattered by the sound of the doors to the exercise yard being opened. Several guards entered, their footsteps echoing down the corridor. Looking out the small window of his cell, Imanishi fixed his gaze on a small plaque on the wall next to the door of a cell saying, “Do not open door while unaccompanied.” This plaque was next to all the cells that housed death row inmates, which numbered 7 or 8 at the time. 

A guard walked up to the door and covered the window with a piece of black cloth and then turned around at attention with his back to the door. Imanishi kept watching as the guard noticed and then barked at him to sit down in his cell. Whether Imanishi did as he was told is unclear, but he somehow noticed that other guards had placed black pieces of cloth on all the other windows on death row. Almost immediately, the red lamp outside each of these cells started flashing. The lamps light up whenever the inmates inside the cells are trying to call a guard. It was obvious that the death row prisoners were agitated. The red glow of the lamps were striking in the dim morning light. The guards tried to extinguish the lamps manually as they kept flashing. Imanishi described their actions as being frantic, as if they were “playing a game of whack-a-mole.” 

He then heard a key unlocking a cell door and the sound of slippered feet approaching the cell. He peered out and saw a man in a black jumper and grey sweat pants pass in front of his own cell, surrounded by guards, his shoulders slumped and his back hunched. He heard the group pass out the doors and into the yard. The remaining guards removed the pieces of cloth from the death row cell windows and left. Complete silence returned to the corridor. In all, the procedure had taken 5 minutes. The breakfast announcement came over the P.A., and shortly the meal arrived—the usual two pieces of bread, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

That night over the radio Imanishi heard that the Ministry of Justice had confimed that three death row prisoners from two detention centers had been executed that morning. One was Yasutaka Fujishiro from the Osaka Detention Center, who was convicted of killing 7 people in Hyogo Prefecture. Imanishi said he was so upset that he couldn’t eat his dinner, having realized what he only suspected, that he had witnessed a man being taken to his death. 

The Asahi article explains that Imanishi is now out of jail, awaiting an appeal brought by prosecutors after he was acquitted by a high court of causing the death of a child. Following his release he talked to his supporters about what he saw the morning of Dec. 21, 2021, and word of his diary entry traveled to a group of lawyers engaged in a  lawsuit, filed on behalf of two death row inmates, that argues the government’s procedure for executions violates Article 31 of the Constitution. The suit was first brought to Osaka District Court, which refused to hear it, calling it “inadmissable.” The lawyers appealed the decision to the high court, which on March 17 sent the suit back to the district court, charging the court with making a decision as to the constitutionality of the claims in the suit.

It isn’t the first time the constitutionality of the same-day execution notice has been challenged, and the reason it’s always been upheld may be due to the vagueness of Article 31, which states, “No person shall be deprived of life or liberty, nor shall any other criminal penalty be imposed, except according to procedure according to law.” The plaintiffs argue that Article 31 refutes the notion that condemned prisoners must accept same day notification of their execution, though, obviously, the purport of Article 31 can be interpreted very broadly.

As it turns out, both sides are appealing the ruling of the high court, the state by saying that the district court’s ruling should have ended the matter, and the plaintiffs who objected to the high court’s upholding the district court’s decision to dismiss the suit’s claim for compensation.

For the appeal, the lawyers group wants to use Imanishi’s testimony as evidence of the cruel and unusual nature of the same-day execution notice procedure, which has been in force since the 70s. Another lawyer who used to be a detention center guard told Asahi that he felt Imanishi’s diary explanation was very “vivid,” and added that everyone is tense on execution day, including all facility personnel, but in the past, condemned prisoners were informed of their execution at least a day before they were to take place and moved to a different floor, where they had the opportunity to meet with family one last time. That practice ended after one condemned man reportedly reacted violently when he was informed of his impending death. 

Asahi contacted the Osaka Detention Center, which said it could not respond to questions about the methodology since they have to “consider the emotional circumstances of the condemned” through compliance with the law.