Death in Jail
Hirasawa remained in prison as a condemned criminal for the 32 years. He spent his time painting and writing his autobiography My Will: the Teikoku Bank Case (遺書 帝銀事件?).
In 1981, Makoto Endo became the leader of Hirasawa's lawyers. Besides the case, he took part in controversial trials such as Norio Nagayama. The defense claimed that statute of limitations for his death penalty ran out in 1985. The death penalty has 30-year statute of limitations under the Criminal Code of Japan, and so Endo appealed for his release. However, the Japanese court refused this argument pointing out that the statute only applies in the case if a death row inmate escapes from prison and evades capture for 30 years. Japanese courts judge that the punishment begins when the minister signs the death warrant. His health deteriorated in 1987. On April 30, 1987, Amnesty International petitioned the Japanese government to release him. He died of pneumonia in a prison hospital on May 10, 1987.
Read more about this topic: Sadamichi Hirasawa
Famous quotes containing the words death and/or jail:
“You listen to artists fighting with each other, competing to the death like gladiators, in order to see who is going to get into a show, who is going to make it, who isn’t: who is going to get a full-page ad and who is going to get a half-page. Then I think, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to go off somewhere and just do your work?””
—Howardena Pindell (b. 1943)
“To long for that which comes not. To lie a-bed and sleep not. To serve well and please not. To have a horse that goes not. To have a man obeys not. To lie in jail and hope not. To be sick and recover not. To lose one’s way and know not. To wait at door and enter not, and to have a friend we trust not: are ten such spites as hell hath not.”
—John Florio (c. 1553–1625)